Bloodline kinjutsu
by Doxkid
Summary: Naruto doesn’t have a bloodline, but when he gets a little help from a special jutsu on the forbidden scroll, he finds a little DNA, goes a long way. After all, who could stop a demon host from stealing bloodlines, if even he doesnt know that he did?
1. Chapter 1

Story

*Key/legend:

'Thoughts'-**'Demon thoughts'**

"Speech"- **"Demon speech"**

_Jutsu/text- __**demon jutsu**_

Several bruised and winded Narutos lay together in a clearing, the nearby trees all marked by the group; some more bore furrows purposefully carved to test a clone's strength, while many others were embedded with kunai and shuriken that missed a lucky clone. One of the Narutos, quickly rejuvenated by the short break rose and, with a glance, banished the others into clouds of smoke.

"Ok, I've got that technique. Let's see what else I can learn." It had only been a few minutes since he stole the Forbidden scroll, so the Hokage probably hadn't recovered from his nosebleed yet. "Hmm, element clones? Maybe later…wow!" Almost at the bottom of the scroll there was a technique that, if it actually worked, would unlock any latent bloodlines carried by the user. It would search though its user's genetics for dozens of generations until it located at least one bloodline ability.

'This will show Sasuke that the Sharingan isn't the only cool bloodline out there!' Naruto started the long chain of hand seals, but stopped short when he noticed they were for the jutsu directly above his. At reading the title, _Bloodline Theft_ technique, Naruto restarted the correct jutsu's hand seals.

The ability to steal bloodlines was tempting though; a bloodline was the ultimate weapon and Konoha had several powerful ones he would easily get a chance to take. It would be easy to gain fame, glory and respect with even a single bloodline's powers backing him, let alone several of them. "I can't do that to...I don't need to…" After a moment of actually considering the ability to steal from his fellow villagers, he put the technique out of his mind and proceeded with the Bloodline Awakening technique. "I can become great on my own."

Which was fortunate; had he continued the Bloodline Theft jutsu, he would have been doomed to a horrid fate, as under the jutsu was a small scribbled note. "Do not attempt. Incomplete." The technique, created and tested by Orochimaru, had never fully worked.

Some of the problems were relatively basic; it needed a massive amount of chakra and a very complex seal jutsu for it to potentially work on a person. Without those, his test subjects always died instantly. No, the conflict arose when he actually did succeed in forcing the technique upon a person. That was when the bloodline would manifest its own modified chakra, which would then eat away at the user's chakra system.

No matter how far he went to preserve the lives of his subjects, to get a stronger test subject or take only a few features from the recreated bloodline, the technique always spelt the death of its user. Eventually, after untold numbers of failures, he simply gave up on it, starting fresh with other techniques that would achieve the same goal. Of those new techniques, the only one salvaged by Konoha was the bloodline reawakening jutsu below it.

Over a hundred correct hand seals later, Naruto was beginning to lose focus; occasionally, he would catch himself trying to skip over a seal, or start a different jutsu, much to his chagrin. Physically worn from an extremely long day and restarting the jutsu five times, he almost cried with joy when he realized he was on the last five seals. His numbing hands contrarily decided that that was the perfect time to take a break.

Three seals away from achieving something that would change his life forever, Naruto's fingers locked themselves in an awkward position, far from being even an imitation of a real seal and the world momentarily disappeared before him. For a second, it seemed that a second of blindness was the only consequence of failing to complete the jutsu with so much chakra built up for it.

He was wrong. Painfully so.

Blue chakra exploded from every chakra point in his body, the force of which easily blasted each and every one of his chakra gates open. Unable to withstand the massive force which it wasn't designed to resist, a small portion of the seal on his stomach started dissolving, releasing an in infinitesimal fraction of Kyuubi's chakra. That demonic chakra slammed into Naruto's own and, without further prompting, the two battled for supremacy.

Fortunately, the demon charka was limited in quantity and the human chakra potency, so after only a moment, they canceled each other out, leaving but wisps of both to repair the damages; all of this was, of course not without further consequences.

The power of Kyuubi's chakra had burned though every one of his chakra gates, changing his natural chakra's limitations. Unrestrained, his own chakra quickly fulfilled its most basic purpose and worked toward restoring his body and chakra system to normal. Basing what rate his chakra should flow at on the potent and destructive demonic energies that had just traveled through him, the gates were reformed smaller than normal sealed as such, now made to never open without their utter destruction.

On Naruto's right arm a small black hair melted into his skin, unnoticed as he thrashed in agony. Twitching in a small circle of ash, he tried to correct the technique, which he was almost sure at this point would kill him if he did nothing. With a laborious attempt at controlling his hands, he added in the last three seals he remembered from the scroll- seals from the bloodline theft jutsu.

Fortunately, the pain soon stopped, allowing him to relax enough to hear Iruka calling out to him from somewhere in the trees. Tentatively, Naruto tried to sit up and he quickly discovered that he didn't feel any pain. Jumping to his feet he realized that he actually felt better than when he started the jutsu, even if it had been a failure, though his right arm and head both itched and throbbed with an irritating, but ignorable, pain.

"I hope the first jutsu is good enough for me to pass. If I needed to learn two or three to pass that secret genin exam…" By the end of that night, he would feel more emotional pain than all his years of physical torment combined. As Mizuki killed Iruka, the one person figure in Naruto's life that he could almost call family, a great demonic beast howled with tainted joy within him.

A little after midnight, Naruto stumbled into his neglected apartment, Iruka's headband in hand and his eyes bloodshot. "I'm worthless." He muttered, remembering how powerless he was when Mizuki attacked, how poorly he battled the treacherous chunin. A team of Anbu arrived as Naruto faced defeat and resolved the conflict, moments too late to either save Iruka after the man shielded Naruto from an attack or stop Mizuki from telling Naruto about the demon within him. Emotionally exhausted and physically weakened, he flopped down onto his bed and after considering the idea of giving up being a ninja for a few minutes, fell into a troubled sleep.

**Three a.m.**

With a start, Naruto awoke, coughing blood out of his mouth and nose. After a few moments of sputtering, trying to get the taste of his own blood and the fear of drowning out of his mind, he opened his eyes to a red tinted, blurry world.

Shaking himself, he rubbed his eyes, trying to clear his vision when a slight pain shot through his eyes. With all the strength he could drag forth, he rose from bed and started towards the bathroom when he saw out of the corner of his eye that his pillow was rich and soggy with blood.

Immediately, he felt his face, but detected no cuts; checking over his whole body, he didn't find a trace of injury. Writing the blood off as part of a strange dream, he tossed the pillow aside, rolled a shirt into a ball and was about to lay down on it when he distinguished that his vision was blurry and tinted red.

Annoyed, tired and tormented over Iruka's death, Naruto summoned a shadow clone to examine him and end the oddities of the dream. Both gasped in shock. Crimson tears poured down the original Naruto's cheeks, dripping alongside his sweat down onto his shirt and bed.

The clone, conversely, bore the scarlet eyes of a fiend; more unnatural than a fully activated Sharingan. There wasn't a difference between the various parts now; red dominated every aspect of his eyes, flowing without interruption from his pupils and irises to the unnamed white area.

Now completely convinced that he was dreaming, Naruto dispelled the clone and ignoring the occasional jolt of pain and wet feeling, sank back into sleep, ignorant to the changes his eyes were undergoing.

**The next morning**

Naruto grudgingly peeled himself from his red-caked shirt and dragged himself towards his kitchen. Halfway there, he heard a faint whoop of approval and stopped, listening to see if he could determine the source. It took only a second for him to notice his half open window, and as he started to walk towards it to investigate, a large rock burst through.

Easily half his weight, and certainly large enough to do lasting damage to him, it blasted through the window and wall around it, shards of glass merrily trailing after it. As he braced himself for its impact and summoned as much chakra as he thought he would need for a jutsu, he perceived something odd.

Instead of racing towards him, it approached slowly, as if it was trudging through thick syrup. Moving as fast as he could, which also seemed oddly slowly, Naruto's hands darted through the hand seals for his newest jutsu and summoned a shadow clone directly in front of the rock. His copy, which appeared much later than he expected, never even got a chance to move as the stone tore through it and continued on its path towards him.

Under normal circumstances, that would have been a bad thing. Fortunately, the reality bending strength of Kyuubi's chakra still tainted his own and the rock became the focus of his jutsu. In slow motion, it twisted to match his form and, while he stood there amazed, it smashed into him, slamming Naruto into wall and shielding him from the glass. Snickering, the new Naruto clone helped his creator to his feet, so they could appraise the damage they caused. The window was simply gone, but at least his wall only had a dent in it.

"Great. Now I need to fix my wall and my window." With an annoyed sigh, he repeated the previous jutsu and summoned twenty shadow clones. "Go to the area I trained in last night and practice until you run out of chakra." He stopped to think about their numbers, before summoning twenty more. "You know what to do." His own hunger reminded him of something. "If any of you bastards touch my ramen, you better hope you run out of chakra before I get back."

That was met by every one of the stomachs in the room growling at once. Hoping for the best, formed the ram seal, pushed as much chakra as he could into the air. This seemed to partially satisfy the copies so, as they filed out his door and the gaping hole in the wall where his window had once been, he rummaged through his fridge intending to eat before he left to the ninja academy.

The water boiling for his breakfast, he caught a glimpse of his clock and realized he only had a few minutes to get to get there. Abandoning breakfast, he sprang out the window, wrapping Iruka's headband onto along the way.

**A week later**

Fifty Naruto filled a small section of the forest, doing the one most common action in the training grounds. Using only the academy taijutsu style, along with snatches of poorly imitated clan fighting techniques, they battled as brutally as a young ninja could; clones killed each other using the crudest, fastest methods they knew. Naruto had improved his clones to the point that only an injury, no matter how minor, could dispel them, so each needed actually hurt the others in hopes of winning each fight.

Within ten minutes, only three Naruto remained, each eying the others to decide whom they should attack first. Two of them reached a non-verbal understanding and rushed the third, who immediately decided to run instead of fight uneven odds. Chasing him through the forest, trying to land a solid attack on him, the more injured of the two pursuers suddenly drew a kunai and with cruel accuracy, stabbed his ally in the back, dispelling him.

Looking back to where their target had been, the only warning he got was a flash of metal, as three kunai were embedded in his chest. Then, in an explosion of chakra and loose mass, he disappeared, leaving the real Naruto the reigning champion.

Recovering faster than expected, Naruto summon another dozen clones to try to improve his chakra control and practice his ninjutsu, while he set off to rest and get a snack before he met with his team.

Halfway back to Konoha he felt a burning pain that, while familiar, was still unwelcome. Assuming one of his clones did something stupid again, like burning something too close to itself, he jumped down from his tree and tried to block out the annoyingly persistent pain.

At an oddly steady pace Naruto's chakra once again rebelled against his body. This time, however, neither Kyuubi's seal, nor his chakra gates were forced to bear the brunt of the damage. Instead, the spiritual energy built in his head and eyes, and slowly changed from a minor stinging sensation to a sharp, stabbing pain.

The power then seemed to thrash, and expand through his body, now only faintly brushing against his inner demon and gates. With steadily increasing strength, it fluctuated, charring his favorite orange jumpsuit at random intervals and pushing all the nature around him to its limit, before slowly dispersing into the air.

"What the hell was that about?" Neither the ash blowing away from him, nor the shredded tree beside him had a response so, taking an odd route, Naruto sat down and concentrated on all the odd chakra related experiences he had gone through. Inevitably, when he became distracted, Naruto's eyes started to wander and then he noticed something.

His sight, which under normal circumstances was probably only slightly better average, was sharpening and dulling rapidly. This continued for several minutes, the dulled vision slowly improving until it was roughly the same as his normal sight. Then it all stopped and his head, which had only hurt under a few circumstances before, throbbed one last time, before all traces of the pain subsided.

This didn't really worry him, until he heard a wasp hovering over his head and looked up to watch it. Every single wing beat was visible, though slightly blurred. Jogging to a small branch of a river that pooled into a miniature pond, he stared into it. A Naruto with the legendary Sharingan eyes stared back. "It wasn't a dream…" His eyes were still blue, but a fat black tomoe, surrounded by red haze, had appeared in each. He fell to the ground dumbstruck. "It's really real…" There was only the sound of nature for a few seconds.

"I've got the Sharingan! Yes!" Screamed Naruto, as he danced happily on the edge of the water.

AN:

I have a new beta: ReluctantOptimist, the writing and editing genius. With ReluctantOptimist working alongside me, I will actually start writing and updating again.


	2. Chapter 2

Story

For a few minutes, Naruto simply sat by the pond, taking in the inhuman level of detail that he could pick up. Slowly, it dawned on him that with his new bloodline, he could be an even stronger ninja, so he quickly summoned a new set of clones. As he went through the motions, his newly improved eyes stunned him into complete silence. Though it wasn't abnormal to see his chakra manifest itself, he could see it build imitations of his chakra system in less that what must have been a second, though it was just as inefficient as it was amazing. Naruto barely realized the clones were complete until one tapped him on the shoulder, reminding him of his next action.

"Ok, now in a few minutes were going to hold another tournament. This time though, the winner gets all ramen he can eat and, as always, the title of greatest Naruto ever!" The clones roared in approval, while Naruto thought back to the process his chakra used to make clones.

Maybe …He made a shadow clone a few feet away and continued to think. Sharingan still blazing, he made another, this time purposefully trying to slow the completion of it and watched it form out of thin air.

After a few more minutes of thinking, Naruto started to summon another clone, only this time, he drew far too much chakra for just one. The added energy gave the chakra a slight glow and made the process completely visible, so he continued to the next step and focused the chakra in one single point, just as the jutsu normally did. The strain of manipulating his chakra quickly became too much, forcing him to release it, taking note of the small gust of air created the outward rush of chakra. After resting a short while, and watching his clones duel, Naruto started forming a clone again, before he remembered the incident that happened a week ago.

If it worked once...Naruto restarted the process, only this time focusing on a point in the pond. Water immediately rushed away from the spot, so after thinking for a moment, Naruto summoned ten clones to help him. His copies pushed chakra into the water, starting their own clone creation processes, while Naruto focused on creating a clone out of the water condensed between them.

One hour later

Naruto stopped again to take a break, his shadow clone almost all dispersed. "What am I doing wrong?" He had tried thirty times and each time he would either waste charka or summon a shadow clone just as he normally did. "I push the chakra where I want it, focus it, then try to make a clone, but it's not working. It just won't hold the shape like I need it to." Not caring that his already tattered clothes would get dirty, Naruto flopped down in the mud next to the water.

"Cheer up. At least we created other cool techniques, like the sexy jutsu. This one will just take longer." One of the re-summoned clones patted his arm, as it drew closer to its dispersion. Though they were almost out of chakra, they still had a few minutes left, so Naruto didn't bother to disperse them or summon new ones.

"That's just a stupid transformation jutsu...Wait! A transformation!" Naruto rolled to his feet and quickly completed his own slightly modified transformation jutsu. However, before his chakra could change him, he focused on the water in front of him and after several attempts, worked his will upon the water.

With an odd poof, the water became a drenched, translucent Naruto, but it quickly fell back into water. Barely showing his disappointment, Naruto repeated the process, only after he created the copy, he immediately projected a shadow clone jutsu onto it. There was a small explosion and in the place of the water copy, was an almost completely solid copy. It studied itself for a few seconds, before deeming that the jutsu was a success, and it would hold.

"Yes!" Several of the more energetic clones danced about for a few seconds, before they finally ran out of chakra and exploded. Carefully screening the clone's creation process for the next hour, Naruto cut out a few of the steps and created another water clone, this time using the almost only the shadow clone jutsu hand seals. Though it was harder to make his chakra obey, it still transformed and animated a water clone for him.

This time however, he was sure it wasn't a fluke and almost ran off to celebrate with ramen, before remembering that he was supposed to meet the rest of team seven for a new mission later. "I guess I'll have to put off the celebration until later." Leaving to meet the rest of his team, Naruto then remembered Kakashi's tendency to be late. "I have a few minutes to spare, though."

The water clone, which was still testing his abilities looked over at Naruto. "Do you think this would work with other things too?"

Another hour later

An array of clone had turned the sparsely wooded area into a completely clear arena, and for the second time that day, Naruto was going to battle. This time though, there was a much larger variety. Making sure to keep the numbers of clones roughly even, Naruto summoned ten fire clones, forgoing the use of a base fire for the transformation. These extra clones ran over to join their element, bringing the number of clones of every type up to fifty.

As soon as the fire clones had gathered, five shot off a poor imitation of Sasuke's grand Fireball technique, which Naruto had been trying to imitate earlier in the week. The fireballs slammed into an unsuspecting Naruto, burning his already damaged clothes.

"The clones must gain the abilities of whatever they're made of!" Naruto thought as he used a replacement jutsu to switch places with another fire clone, just in time for it to take most of the fire group's fireball techniques for him. He snickered at the copy's destruction by its own element, before the fire clone stepped out of the fire, virtually unharmed. The only difference Naruto noticed before he was forced to dodge away was that the fire clone spat sturdier, hotter fireballs.

Realizing that Naruto was occupied, several metal clones charged at him from behind, the first sweeping his feet out from under him, while the others jumped into the air. As Naruto fell, the clones gave into gravity and dropped like boulders towards their creator. Automatically rolling away, Naruto gasped as the same clones sank two meters into the ground, a hit that could have easily killed him under the best of circumstances.

"You retain almost all the properties of your original element, huh? Alright!" Forty shadow clones appeared around Naruto and then each used the transformation jutsu. A cloud of smoke covered the area, but before it could dissipate, the group of now black and orange clothed Narutos engaged a group of water clones in tiajutsu. Then the battle started to get serious.

Three hours later,

Naruto knelt on the ground trying to catch his breath, as eight copies of him struggled to move. Oddly enough, they were all completely devoid of chakra, the first and probably last time it would ever happen. Deactivating the sharingan that had developed surprisingly quickly, two tomoe receded into his blue eyes, draining the spreading red color from around them.

A few minutes later, their ridiculous chakra potential had partially regenerated and they struggled to their feet to look at each other. Ever since he joined team seven, he hadn't gotten into fights with drunken villagers claiming he murdered their families, so this had been the first time he wore himself out this much fighting for t least a month.

"I'm going to miss all of you. Damn, I wish I could keep you around, but if anyone found out about this technique, they might force me to teach others." Naruto really would miss them. As pathetic as it was, fighting with them gave him one of his first real friends; friends who didn't deny knowing him to their peers and families. Shikamaru and Kiba were nice, but they couldn't hang out after school, unless they wanted to anger their parents.

The only metal bushin remaining took a step forward. "Well, I think I know a way we could stick around and still be secrets." He called the other clones who had become generals over their own variety and they all huddled up, discussing the next course of action. The fire, and shadow clones both seemed agitated, but finally nodded and the group walked back to Naruto.

"Ok then. Here's how it'll go. We all become your armor and tools and you let us stick around. Everyone wins." They looked satisfied with this, but a dilemma seemed to glare to their creator.

"No way! Too many things about that wouldn't work. One, how do I explain the new stuff? Two, how would you get to relax if there can't be more than one real me running around at a time? Three, we would run out of ramin too quickly. Four, if we're under stress we you may lose your form and become a clone, giving away the secret. And finally, I'll need to support you with charka, so I'll never be at full strength." The bushin smiled at this and the chakra boosted shadow clone stepped forward to explain this time.

"Well, you can say that you wanted to look like a real ninja, and I doubt many will notice a few minor changes to our awesome orange jumpsuits. I guess if needed, we could say that were the real Naruto and run away if we ever meet the others. The food thing isn't a problem, as we all eat different things; Flame here absorbs fire and smoke for example, while I just need food, rest or chakra." Shadow stopped and thought for a second, but the Stone general beat him to it.

"If you're attacked, we'll still function normally. And to answer you last question, we don't use your chakra anymore. During that battle, we stopped using your chakra for some reason and started making our own; I think that weird reddish chakra had something to do with it. Besides, think about how cool were would be working together. I could shield you from most attacks and give your punches extra push and even launch the occasional spike or something for you. Flame could speed you up and do fire attacks. Metal is almost the same as me, so he has my abilities, and he can make kunai and stuff no problem. Water over here could be an infinite water supply so you only need food on missions; I bet he could even make sake if you gave him enough to start with. And that's not even a little of what we can do, I know Shadow passed through solid objects while fighting so he can do some cool things…" he trailed off before starting again.

"So? How about it?" The bushin Naruto's all looked hopefully at their creator, but the idea of having one-of-a-kind ninja weapons were too much to pass on.

"Alright, but you all need some new techniques. That grand fireball thing gets old after a while." Simultaneously, they all walked up to their master and when they were in a small circle, a foot away from each other, they each performed the transformation jutsu, each turning into an object that would use their powers the best. Removing his own ancient items that cost him ten missions pay and replacing it with the new set, Naruto suddenly felt a wave of hatred and anger pass over him. Brushing it aside like had been doing for as long as he could remember, he waited for the evil to recede.

Unnoticed, on his stomach, an extremely complex seal flared red as several new consciousness and chakras were forcibly absorbed into him. Finally, after several minutes, it was gone and Naruto who had already forgotten about it glanced over all of his new possessions.

Grinning like an idiot, he looked up at the sky and saw the midday sun blazing. Worried he looked down at his watch and almost swore. 'I'm late!' He immediately took to the trees, not noticing that he regained his balance on branches a little bit faster than normal.

Same Time, at team seven's training area:

Sasuke and Sakura were discussing the annoying habits of their teacher. This dead conversation had long ago lost the Uchiha's interest, but since the Naruto wasn't even there to do something stupid, it was all he had.

'Damn, I think I'd actually prefer arguing with Naruto, over being near this fool. At least the other idiot has useful abilities, like that clone jutsu of his; Sakura just drags us down.' Getting to the point of considering killing her and becoming a missing-nin like his brother, Sakura was barely saved by their mutual teacher.

"Yo." Kakashi exploded next to them in a burst of leaves, calmed from his visit to the hero monument. Forgoing his normal excuses, he started to explain why they would need to go get this week's missions from the Hokage, until he noticed something missing. 'Hmm, Avenger, Lovesick…where's Target?' The nicknames he had labeled them when they became a team allowed him to think of them without confusing them with a similar, but older nin. "Where's Naruto?"

Sakura immediately started ranting about tardiness being a horrible quality in a ninja, while Sasuke returned to his famous, brooding look.

"Don't bother looking for him, one of his clones found me a few hours ago and told me he would be out training. I bet once he figures out what time it is, he'll race right over." Surprised, Sakura looked longingly at her love, as he completed the calm speech.

"We'll, I suppose I could wait here a little while. Why don't you two go on ahead? If he doesn't get here soon enough, I'll go looking for him." Nodding, Kakashi's two students jumped away, and he opened his favorite book. 'Take your time Naruto. I can wait all day.'

Ten minutes later

"Kakashi! Sorry I'm late, but I was training and I had to prefect a technique!" Already feeling the lie eating at him, Naruto suppressed his negative emotions. 'I can't let anyone know about this technique! Hey, maybe I could make this my clan secret once I become Hokage and build a clan. Well, at least I didn't really lie.'

The jonin acknowledged the excuse and looked at Naruto's shadow. "We're only about ten minutes late, so just this once, I'll body flicker us there." Stepping over to Naruto, with his orange book still raised, he grasped Naruto's shoulder and twisted his hand holding his book.

Naruto bare managed to activate his Sharingan before they were moving in a blur through the village. Almost instantly from a normal perspective, but in five seconds to the temporary sharingan, the trip was over and Kakashi stepped away to lean against the wall behind them.

"Naruto, you idiot! You're late! I swear, if we don't get a mission…" Sakura was already flexing her arm and inner Sakura waved banners encouraging her. Sasuke simple stared at Naruto, trying to identify the odd shape in his eye that swirled away a second later.

"No need to kill him, I reserved a special mission for you three. The Yamanaka's need someone to help weeding their garden so…"

"I can't stand this!" Sakura and Naruto exploded at the same time. "I thought we were ninja, not errand boys." This sentence got Naruto a punch in the face from Sakura, but he barely noticed, because the Hokage was flipping through files.

"all I have left is… well, I suppose a C rank mission would be alright this once as long as Kakashi makes sure you don't get into trouble. Tazuna, come in here." A drunken man stumbled out of another room and supported himself on wall. "This bridge builder has come with the request that a team protects him from bandits, while he journeys back to Wave country. Then you will stay with him until he completes the bridge." Naruto and Sakura actually jumped happily, while Sasuke merely grinned.

"Wait." Tazuna wobbled for a second until he regained his balance. "You mean these runts are going to protect me? That short bond one looks like he could get stepped on and the girl is obviously a weakling." The only warning he got was two blurs before he was pinned to the ground, clutching his stomach.

"If you two kill him, you'll never get a mission again." Sakura stopped kicking him, and stepped away. A few seconds later, Naruto reluctantly jumped off his back. "Alright, tomorrow, we'll meet at daybreak by the village gates. I suggest you all stock up on supplies or this trip will be very uncomfortable." With that, Kakashi flickered away, and Sasuke walked over to the door, but something stopped him.

"Hey dumbass." Naruto looked up. "You don't have a clan, right?" The response was a curious look and the shake of his head. "Hmm, never mind. Someone as weak as you could never have a clan or bloodline limit. Forget it." The teen continued, his biggest fan trailing behind him, leaving Naruto and the Hokage alone.

"So Naruto, is there anything you wish to know? I must get back to my paperwork." The old man smiled, and Naruto wished he could help with the paperwork, but he knew he would only get in the way. Then a thought hit him.

"Could I read some more from the scroll? I only want to check for something, and I promise to be careful…" The grandfatherly smile fell from the elderly man's face.

'It would only be a quick peak right? What am I worried about, it's not like he has the sharingan or anything right? A preview of his birthright won't change anything. After all, the Yondaime practically re-wrote the scroll.' The Hokage nodded. "Only for a few minutes, then you have to leave. I suppose, if you stopped all the pranks, I could let you see more later, though."

"That's all I need, old man." Naruto walked into the adjacent room and strolled down to where he had stolen the scroll. Flicking some of the many specks of blood of it's edge, his hands started to itch, but he ignored it to open the scroll.

Sharingan, once again active, he unrolled it and tried to memorize a few techniques. 'Shadow dragon, Dance of Shadows, Condensed fountain, volcano barrage, and Wood release? There are wood techniques? I better just scan the whole thing and learn the jutsu later.' Going through the whole scroll several times to commit the writing to memory, his sharingan only making it slightly easier, he rebound it and deactivated the bloodline.

"It's been over five minutes, so it's time for you to get going. You have a mission tomorrow, remember?" Thanking the Hokage, Naruto ran out of the building, ready to practice his new techniques.

The Next Day.

Naruto was half asleep, but still in better condition than one would expect. He had made five clones for each of the hundred techniques he wanted finished for the mission, and only half of the groups had gotten any progress at all. He personally took the hardest group of techniques, wood release and made another super clone for it.

After getting it to agree to the same thing as the others, it transformed partially into a vine and Naruto absorbed the rest. That vine was now wrapped around Naruto's wrist, in a poor imitation o a wristband, and whenever he touched it he would be rejuvenated by his accomplishment.

Eerily on time, Kakashi nodded for the guards to open the gates and led them out. For an hour, they followed the path until they passed two odd puddles that hadn't dried out yet, despite it raining weeks ago. Sasuke noticed the same and drew a handful of weapons inconspicuously.

"Now!" At the cry, the two puddles condensed into men who swung a long chain around his teacher. Before any of them could react, they yanked the multiple wraps of the chain, and the copy Nin was shredded into several bloody chunks.

"No!" The group yelled out simultaneously. The two new ninjas dashed forward to try to take out another target, but Naruto and Sasuke each appeared under one and kicked the enemies away. Nodding to each other, Sasuke flung three shuriken and a kunai at the chain while Naruto summoned chakra to his hand and transformed it into several kunai. The blades were immediately plucked from the air and whipped them towards the assassin nin, closely following the real weapons procured by Sasuke. Sasuke's blades bound the two nin's cahin to a large tree and Naruto's dug themselves into the nin's ankles and feet.

Seeing that their enemies were pinned by Sasuke's attack and injured, both Sharingan children prepared to finish them off, only for their teacher to appear in front of them. Confused, everyone looked at the spot Kakashi had 'died', only to see a large clump of dirt in place of their teacher.

"Well, I suppose I really wasn't needed. Good thing these are only small fries; if a real enemy appeared, I doubt you two could have brought them down so easily." Naruto smiled happily at the hidden praise, but Sasuke grimaced.

'Not only has the dead-last caught up with me, he can even created weapons out of thin air! I must unlock my blood rite, and surpass him if I want to have a chance at beating Itachi. But, if he could help me…' "Hey Naruto, what was that technique you used?"

"Um, weapon throwing?" Not realizing he had created the kunai and knives, Naruto had made the ability almost second nature. Sakura however, had been next to the bridge builder the whole time, so she saw everything.

"You just made those weapons appear out of thin air! It's not fair that you get that special jutsu, and Sasuke doesn't! After all, he was the top student in our class and you were barely even last, so he has to be much better than you are! I swear if you don't show Sasuke-kun that jutsu, I'll never speak to you again!" The logic was glaringly flawed, but that didn't take away the painful feeling left by it.

Frowning, Kakashi tapped the konoichi's shoulder and shook his head disappointedly. When he turned to the recipient of the verbal thrashing, his grim sag was instantly covered by a hollow smile. Even before that was finished, the normal hyperactive grin covered his toughest student's face.

"Unless Sasuke submits to being my student or I adopt him into my family, he isn't learning this jutsu. I'm so good at it; I don't even need hand seals, so he could never catch up even with the sharingan." Naruto stood in front of the group, striking what he thought was a powerful stance, but both Sasuke and Sakura bushed past him, ignoring him completely. They all knew those conditions would never be met, so without speaking anymore, they walked onwards.

Only to stop again, when a bush rustled barely within the trees. Active before he got a chance to think, Naruto sprayed the area with projectiles. Then he commanded the trees nearby to trap anything with a pulse, their roots extending and ripping through the ground. With the confirmation signal of a sweet scent, Naruto finished things off by breathing in deeply and charging his lungs with chakra. When he exhaled, he ignited the air and forced it to the area as a _fire clone style Mystical dragon flame_, something he had learned from the scroll and modified for his own use. The flames, though intense where they landed, died within seconds, barely reaching beyond the target bush. Confidently moving shrubbery blocking his view aside, Naruto stopped moving completely when he saw that he had just harassed a rabbit.

"YOU IDIOT! You burned that poor rabbit!" Though that was something the whole group noticed, both Kakashi and Sasuke were amazed.

'He-he didn't use hand seals at all! And I think he even forced the tree roots to help! How can I even get close to my goal if Itachi can do even better than this?' Repeated itself continuously in Sasuke's mind. Then, though accidentally, he started talking. "Maybe you're not as pathetic as I thought you were."

Ignoring Sakura's continuing rant, Naruto grinned over to his skilled rival. Kakashi, who had returned to his book once the fire died out, slowly lower it into a pocket, sensing danger. Then, moving faster than anyone could have expected him to, he tossed Sasuke into the air, tripped Naruto, pushed Sakura and slammed himself and Tazuna into the ground while still forming the words "Get down."

By the time he finished the short sentence, a giant sword ripped through where their torsos used to be. Almost as soon as it passed, it imbedded itself, halfway into a large, elderly tree. Recovering from their various predicaments, the group hastily re-assembled around Tazuna.

"Hmm, even with the brats dragging you down, you're still skilled." A shadow leapt from a tree behind them and landed on the handle of sword sticking out. Without his speed to hide behind, the man turned, and grinned smugly at the entourage. "Good thing really. I wouldn't want my fight with the great nin who copied a thousand jutsu to be boring."

"Zabuza, demon of the mist. I suppose you're here for the bridge builder. Not surprising considering the trouble we've had already." Kakashi's hand flicked over a seal on his wrist, releasing chakra that had been stored in weights back into his body. "You three stay back and protect the bridge builder." With a heavy bound, he disappeared into the air, quickly mirrored by Zabuza.

Amazed at the speed of the two fighters, Naruto forced chakra into his eyes, unknowingly increasing the left eye to three tomoe. Almost finished activating the bloodline, Naruto hurriedly created a metal clone in front of himself. He was barely fast enough to block the brunt of a pale Zabuza's sword slash. The attacking water clone was surprised just long enough for a tree root to rip a tiny cut in its leg, dispelling it.

Ignoring the eerie dialog and breaking his oath to himself, Naruto created a clone of every variety he could think of to surround him and his team. Each wielding their own specialized attacks and the sharingan, they maintained a firm barrier around the group. That is, until Kakashi was trapped in a water prison.

AN :

Please Read and review with comments, flames, concerns, suggestions, questions or whatever excuse you need to type up even a one-word response to my work…

Lord Doxkid.


	3. Chapter 3

**Story**

"Run! Forget me; he'll kill you if you stay! Sasuke, lead them back to the village, and don't stop for anything." Kakashi screamed through the liquid barrier. If it had been formed earlier, the high water pressure would have probably stopped him from burning chakra as air, but the chakra required was too great for the swordsman. With other enemies around, he couldn't waste chakra on a technique that probably wouldn't work.

"Do you really think they could escape me? Do you seriously think one of the seven swordsmen can't catch three ten year olds and a drunk?" Maintaining the water bubble with his right hand, Zabuza formed a seal with the other. A second later, water in front of him bubbled up to his height and separated into four identical liquid men. Still taking his time, the murderer finished the four-water clones and commanded them to attack.

"Look out!" His metal clone jumped in between a Zabuza bushin's sword, and Sasuke, blocking the attack. As he melted into a puddle of steel, he punched his opponent in the face with his inhuman strength, marking the destruction of both of them. The other clones tried to block their own opponent's attacks as well, but their bodies moved slower than their eyes, it was a futile effort. Three clones dying to stop each assassin, the team was once again exposed.

"It seems you train the runts better than I thought. Pity they'll die like this." Still taking his time, Zabuza stated the process for forming eight more clones. Thinking fast, Sasuke turned to Naruto.

"If I attack, do you think you could keep up? I bet you'd just slow me down, but we need to get Kakashi free." Weakly disguising their fear, they nodded to each other and Naruto charged forward. Halfway there, Naruto formed ten shadow clones and lunged for the eight swordsmen. His fist met hard water, and he pushed root clone chakra to his hand, turning the small keepsake vine around his wrist into a spiky wooden knuckle. His second strike brought down his enemy, but his mini-army wasn't so lucky. Though well formed, his shadow clones only took down two of Zabuzas before they were all ripped to shreds.

"Go!" Naruto yelled and disappeared above them, just as Sasuke rained weapons down on the Zabuzas. While lacking the numbers of Naruto's metal attacks, his accuracy was by far superior, striking the copies with barely any misses. After three handfuls of weapons, six puddles pricked with shuriken and kunai remained.

"Don't forget me!" Looking up to find Naruto, Zabuza and Kakashi nearly gasped. Over fifty clones were falling with the orange ninja jumping from one to the other to position his attack; while his jumps weren't unusual in the ninja world, the sheer number of clones was unexpected coming from a genin. Right above Zabuza, five clones smiled and inhaled, heat radiating off them in waves. Predicting the attack, Zabuza brought his left hand up to form a chain of seals, a dome of water developed around him.

"Not good enough!" Kakashi snickered. The clones bounced off the barrier, and instead of exploding like a normal shadow clone, they twisted to aim their attacks directly at Zabuza and proceeded.

"U!" They blasted their fire attacks, evaporating the wall of water and scorching the assassin. It wasn't the worst injury he had taken in the fight, but it was distracting enough for him to not notice the next group preparing their assault

"Zu!" Ten clones landed in the water and transformed into a platform for the others. The next group landed on those clones and transformed the air in front of them into projectiles. Without any consideration for the previous group, they threw directly into Zabuza's general area, though all made sure to avoid Kakashi. Choosing to block with his sword, Zabuza ripped is arm away from the Water prison jutsu and jumped away, swatting down the attacks as he went.

"Ma!" Landing on clones behind Zabuza, ten more latched on to his arms and legs.

"Ki!" Five clones landed on the shore, and buried their arms into the ground. Flinging the last group of clones off, the large roots flying towards gave Zabuza no choice but to jump into the air to escape. Those roots ripped through all clones below him and he took note of the bridge-like path it created, before he started searching for the rest of the clones. Then, still from above, he heard a shout.

"_Uzumaki, Ultimate combo!_" The remaining clones dived into him, twisted to get him over them, and kicked him even higher upward. Dropping like a bird of prey, Naruto gave no further warning as he buried his heel into the swordsman's neck. Zabuza barely got a chance to look surprised before he was launched back towards the ground at breakneck speeds. Halfway to the ground, he remembered to righten himself, only bring himself face to face with Sasuke. The first punch he dodged, but Sasuke spared him no mercy and promptly maneuvered over him, and nailed him in the neck with a kick. Once again upside down, he had no time left to land properly and bore the ground's full fury. No longer suspended by clones or an initial jump, Naruto and Sasuke both began to fall, but far before they were in any danger, Kakashi snatched them out of the air. Drenched and tired, Kakashi offered no comment, but instead returned them to their positions next to the Tazuna.

"I'll take it from here." He took a few seconds to breath, before slowly approaching Zabuza's limp form. Said missing nin dragging himself up from the newly formed crater in the ground and shook off the damage that had been inflicted.

"I doubt this will take much longer if all of you use flashy attacks like that." His arms however, were shaky and when he tried to for a hand seal, his chakra violently flared. "What! What did you do, you little brats?" The two kicks, which had been very close to each other, had been over several tenketsu points. While normally, it wouldn't have affected him much, Naruto's kick had triggered his chakra's automatic response to upper torso damage and was starting to repair any damage caused by it, when Sasuke struck. His hit forced chakra out of the area, pinching several tenketsu points closed.

"My students may be flashy, weak and unfit ninja by your definition, but at least they aren't scum like you. Let's finish this." Shaken by the fact that the runts actually got the upper hand over him, Zabuza ignored the pain of his disrupted chakra and jogged onto the pond while forming hand-seals, Kakashi running after him.

"_Water art: Water torrent!_" Tendrils of water danced unsteadily into his hand and then shot wearily towards Kakashi. Still lacking his headband, Kakashi threw a kunai into the torrent, splitting it in half and ending the jutsu. Zabuza, unable to maintain the small amount of chakra control he needed for water walking, unsteadily circled towards the roots created by Naruto's attack. Once safely on top platform, he locked eyes with Kakashi who hadn't seemed to move, but was still the same distance away. Hoping to finish the fight soon, Zabuza started his water torrent jutsu again, only for it to be completely canceled out by Kakashi's mimicked attack.

"You damn monkey! Stop copying me!" The both yelled out. Ignoring his pain, Zabuza let his hands fall into a familiar seal combo, only to see Kakashi do the same. As he got closer and closer to finishing, a shadow took definition behind Kakashi. On the last seal, his blood ran cold, and he faintly anticipated his opponent's powerful _Water vortex_ technique.

Floating behind Kakashi opponent, were two half limp clones of himself, one who was flying through seals and the other posed as both Kakashi, and he was. The one doing seals yelled out what would have been his counter move, '_water diversion, forced waterspout split technique_', and drew his sword to launch another attack. The other, like the original would be in a few seconds, was launched away and disappeared. Then, the copied jutsu descended upon him.

His yell muffled by the concentrated water's pressure, Zabuza was carried down through the forests aside the lake, until his finally hit a solid tree, which must have been a few centuries old. Carefully following the progress, everyone ran through the dense wood growth until they found the weakened water demon.

"Kakashi…Can you see the future?" Barely able to lift his own head, Zabuza prepared himself for death. The team was just too much for him, from the freakish students, and their psychic teacher. "Haku, I need you." The whisper barely had a sound, but Haku had never failed him before.

"Yes. I can see the future…and your future is DEATH!" Drawing his kunai, Kakashi prepared to deal the final blow, only for a needle to land directly in front of his foot. Taken back, he watched helplessly as his kill was peppered with needles in the neck, silencing the Water assassin. Then a small boy in a mask jumped down from the dense leaves above. Though the mask he wore hid his face, the small marks on the side were all he clues he needed. "You must be a Mist Hunter-nin."

"Yes, I' m a hunter-nin from Hidden Mist. I've been tracking this target for roughly a week, so I must be the one to eliminate him." Hefting the large body onto his back, the hunter-nin formed a hand seal. "Good bye." The two flickered away, but before Kakashi could comment to his team, the world grew dim.

"Not enough chakra…" Covering his sharingan eye with his haite again, Kakashi slowly drooped down. Sakura, the only team member who wasn't tired or still watching for danger, took a step forward to help him; an idiotic mistake she would later admit. The warrior's limp body, despite not being consciously controlled, drew a kunai and made a move to slashed at her neck, only to be stopped by Naruto shielding her, and Sasuke holding Kakashi back.

"Fool. He's a ninja, not some worn out traveler. Did you really think he would just let his body become defenseless because he needed a nap? Even this idiot knew that trained ninja will kill anyone that approaches while unconscious!" Struggling to control his teacher Sasuke shifted gaze to Naruto. "I think I can hold him still long enough for you to bind his hands." Nodding, Naruto ripped a flexible root from a nearby tree and wrapped his teacher's hands together. Without the ability to use his hands, Kakashi tried to kick both of them. Within the minute, his feet and hands were bound together and he was snoring lightly.

"Sakura, make yourself useful and see if you can do anything to help him. Tazuna, Naruto and I need to have a little talk." Smiling at the chance to redeeming herself, Sakura started digging through their bags, while her teammates lead their charge away so she wouldn't be able to 'accidentally' overhear. Once they were sure that Sakura wouldn't be listening in, Naruto angrily punched Tazuna in the face.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Turning to the silent child, Tazuna met cold eyes. Then, for less than a flicker of a second, he could see the high level Nin they had just watched fighting in the two boys. For that minuscule fraction of time, a sound haunted him, as if the death god was calling for him, but the drunk wrote it off as tainted Sake.

"I had no choice. What used to be the village hidden in the Waves, my home village, is in trouble. The ninja have all been absorbed into Waterfall, Rain and Mist country and even the nobility have become paupers. Missing nin are flooding in, slowly spreading throughout our country and taking over. Almost every function of the village has been shut down and we can barely control non ninja crime. All because of that bastard Gato! If the bridge isn't finished, our once dense villages will become watery wastelands."

Looking to the boys for any sign of weakness he could manipulate, Tazuna was severely disappointed. Naruto was becoming slightly annoyed, but was partially indifferent and Sasuke looked...happy. Slowly, a grin spread until Sasuke looked like a Naruto henge had been placed over him.

"I'll make you a deal. You grant us power in Wave country and we'll protect you until the bridge is built." Tazuna couldn't believe his ears.

'How could he be so cruel? They're barely old enough to be ninja!' Frowning Tazuna shook his head. "I wish I could, but I don't have the kind of power. Please, I'll give you my own life if you asked, but I can't give what I don't have."

"I know your family was practically royalty when Wave was prosperous, but if that's too much, then what about you secure our status as wave ninja and citizens? I could arrange for the rest if you agree." He waited a few seconds, but Tazuna had already made his decision.

"Alright, but you better protect my family too. If anything happens to grandson Inari or my daughter Tsunami, the deals off!" Ignoring the threat, Sasuke started walking back towards their temporary camp, only to be stopped by Naruto's hand.

"I don't care what your plan is, but I don't want any trouble. If you want to become the ruler of Wave to further your quest, I'll stand aside, but if anyone gets hurt, I will stop you. As long as you don't, I'll help you if you want." As if he expected this, Sasuke batted the hand stopping him aside and kept walking. "Besides, when I become Hokage, I don't want to have to kill you for treason or anything." Never stopping, Sasuke smirked at the statement. Even at serious time like this, Naruto never gave up his dream.

"I'll remember that…Naruto." The trio returned to camp to continue their voyage.

**The next day**

Three Naruto clones were carrying Kakashi, as Tazuna and the team strolled lazily. Though Sakura and Tazuna didn't notice, every few minutes Naruto would release clones into the woods around them to keep watch. Sasuke however, was quickly growing curious.

"Hey Naruto. Why do you use shadow clones so much? I thought you were horrible at the clone technique." Naruto shrugged. They hadn't spoken since their meeting with Tazuna, so he was almost surprised.

"The other bushin needed chakra control. My shadow clones are real and they just need chakra, something I've got loads of." A clone up ahead vanished in a poof. "You may have jutsu from your clan and be a prodigy, but I'll always be better in at least that. Oh, and we're almost there."

'That technique is...interesting. I'm surprised he can do it so well and so often too. He isn't as weak as he made us to believe in the academy.' Ignoring Sakura, who had steadily seemed to grown more and more annoying, Sasuke realized how powerful their team was. 'Maybe he would be a good milestone. I bet Itachi never learned how to do that, so if I can beat Naruto, I'll be closer to taking him down.'

A hundred meters away, beyond the last of the thick trees, sat two men floating in one of the dingiest boat the team had ever seen. Once they were only twenty meters away, the slightly taller of the two called out. "Tazuna, you ready to go? We need to hurry if we're going to avoid the patrols." Automatically turning to Tazuna, the mostly sober old man explained.

"Gato has border patrols set up to prevent deserters from escaping. I'll always have scattered friends who want to help, so that won't be a problem is we get there on time." The genin nodded, and loaded their teacher onto the rickety boat. It groaned angrily, but held their weight, so the group departed into the looming fog.

**At Tazuna's place**

The three Naruto earth clones that had carried Kakashi in were ordered outside. Mentally dismissing them, they became clumps of clay, which seeped into the almost swampy ground.

"So, how will you three defend me? Without that teacher of yours, I doubt you'll be much good and if any more ninja like the last one come, you'll need him." Tsunami's eyebrow rose, but she didn't say anything. Inari stormed downstairs upon hearing his grandfather's voice. Whipping away the tears, he tackled the old man, nearly toppling him.

Ignoring the scene, so Tazuna and the kid wouldn't be embarrassed later, the middle-aged woman drew their attention.

"Both Wave country and my family will be indebted to you forever. Please, make yourselves at home, it's the least we could do for your team." Sasuke opened his mouth to take the role of team leader, when a voice spoke up.

"That would be great, since then we could defend him from assassination attempts at night." Startled, Sakura lashed out with her arm to smack the owner of the voice. Before it even made it halfway, it was pushed downward, making her tumbled into a confused heap at her teacher's feet. "I hoped you didn't run into more enemies after I passed out." Even though his shoulders were slightly slumped, and his voice wasn't even close to having the amount of energy as normal, Kakashi Hatake leaned against the wall behind them, the binding vines at Sakura's side.

"Well, now that none of you think I'm a boogie man, we have something to discuss. Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke, could you help me to somewhere a bit more secure?" The two boys quickly supported him and Sakura collected herself.

"You should probably go to one of the guest rooms upstairs. Here, I'll lead the way." Tsunami walked down the hall, and paused by the staircase to let them catch up. She didn't expect to see three Naruto walk past her and up the stairs carrying Kakashi. "I'll go have a talk with my father. Your rooms are on the right, across from the stairs." The original teens proceeded, and she couldn't help but think her family was in great hands.


	4. Chapter 4

**Story**

"Now then, we have a problem." Kakashi's lone eye was curved happily, but it was obvious to even Naruto he was masking his pain. "I assume you all remember Zabuza being finished by that hunter Nin, right? Well, Zabuza wasn't dead, just near dead; real hunter nin destroy bodies on site to prevent the theft of any hidden village's secrets." He waited a few seconds, and when realization passed over Sakura and Naruto's faces, he continued. "Unfortunately, that means not only will we have to face Zabuza again, but now we need to be able to fight whoever he decides to bring with him. That child who was skilled enough to cause a fake death will almost certainly be there."

"What do you mean; we'll have to take on him and his ally? With Naruto always getting in Sasuke's way, we'll be killed in seconds!" The Sasuke sent her a withering glare, while Naruto withdrew into himself.

"She's right about one thing." Naruto glanced at her one last time, before sullenly redirecting his attention to Kakashi. Sasuke on the other hand, continued to glare. "Right now you three are no match for either of them and with me injured, we won't stand a chance. Luckily, Zabuza isn't fit for a fight right now either."

This caught Sasuke's attention, for a few seconds. Sliding closer to Sakura, he whispered "Next time, you WILL make yourself useful." He then returned his attention to their teacher, while Sakura sat wide eyed for a few seconds, trying to compute the order and Sasuke speaking to her at the same time.

"All the damage you two did to Zabuza will help quite a bit. If he gets a decent medic Nin to help him, it'll take a bit over a week for him to fully recover." Naruto finally smiled, the hidden praise raising his spirits.

"What's the problem then? Naruto and I are more than ready to take a weak Zabuza down and you should be healed by then." Sakura nodded behind Sasuke until she realized she had been left out. Of course, Naruto received blame for this in the form of a punch to the back of the head.

"The problem is that I'm not physically injured. The sharingan uses massive amounts of my chakra, so I've completely exhausted my chakra supply. Until it refills, my wounds will probably refuse to heal properly and if I'm injured, my chakra won't regenerate as quickly, so if we got into a fight, I'd be down after a few jutsu. That's why we're going to be training hard for the next few days. We wouldn't want to waste this time lounging about, would we?" Annoyed at being excluded until then, Sakura grinned merrily; Sasuke merely nodded and Naruto almost exploded with joy.

'I have to remember to keep my technique a secret. I can't let the others know how to do it, or else the Uzumaki family won't have their own techniques.' "What will we be doing? Learning to fly? Breathing under water?" Naruto pranced happily. Up until the mission, they had just been running errands, never training at all.

"Even better!" The one visible eye on Kakashi's face was still curved happily, but under his mask, a smirk was almost visible to Sasuke. "We will be climbing trees!" Naruto bounced around happily for a minute, until he realized what had been said.

'WHAT?"

--

"Maybe less this time." Though spoken loudly, the voice hadn't was ignored even by the speaker, easily fading before it reached any of his companions. Running full speed, Naruto made his way up the tree a few meters again before his control slipped and he was launched off, not even bothering to mark how high he had gotten. The small crater left behind did that for him.

"You need to focus more on control instead of quantity. Sakura over here barely has a tenth of Sasuke's chakra, and she made it up her tree on he first try." The girl sat on a high branch, wheezing as if she had been running the whole day, but she was still far higher than either of the boys had reached.

Neither boys said anything as they charged their own trees again, but this time, there was a noticeable difference. Sasuke made it a meter higher than before, and Naruto got even higher then that. When Sasuke lost control, he launched himself off and somersaulted until he was close to the ground, landing with no difficulty. Naruto however, was still partially upside down, amazed at surpassing Sasuke. His almost insane grin only vanished when he realized that Sasuke was standing on the ground, but was still and eye level with him. And Upside down. "Crap."

"Naruto!" Three voices shouted as he forgot to flip, and landed on his head with an odd crunch.

--

Eight almost identical faces and one giant set of inhuman teeth loomed over him. Realizing he was awake, the giant creature attached to those teeth rushed towards him, only to slam into a cage like barrier. Annoyed it let loose a demonic growl that shook Naruto to his core, before retreating deeper into its lair.

"Don't worry, we'll maintain everything here. This giant idiot won't be interfering as much as before, but we can't hold him off forever." Naruto looked around, trying to pierce the smog like darkness. "Oh ya, try to let us out sometime soon, ok?" Remembering the several clones he had created, Naruto agreed immediately.

"I'll try to get all of you out soon." Apparently, that was the only reason they were there, as they slowly disappeared into the darkness. When there was only one left, the sole copy started talking again, its single voice lacking the echo like sound of being nearly synchronized with several others.

"I guess it time for you to go back then." It stated enviously. Naruto looked around for an exit before abruptly disappearing, an odd and confused look on his face.

"Did it work?" The giant figure had returned, only now, its massive canines looked even larger. As it approached, the thud of its paws jarred the surprisingly large cell, but a small mark that seemed to be burned into the central bar, seemed to hold the cage mostly still.

"Ya, he agreed to let us out. Now…when I get out, you have to make sure I have enough of your chakra. A full four tails should suffice." The grin on the huge creature's face diminished, but it growled approval anyway. "Great. I get out of here, and I will make sure you get full freedom, lord Kyuubi.

"Finally. If I had to put off my training much longer because of you, I'd drop you off the bridge." Naruto slowly broke his eyes apart, and then clasped them shut again. It was either still morning, or he had been sleeping for at least a day. Sasuke kicked him in the leg, so halfheartedly Naruto opened his eyes again. His team was background by the sparse forest where they had been training.

"I'm surprised you survived a fall like that. It shouldn't be possible for you to regain conscious so soon, after something like that. I guess you're tougher than you look." Kakashi stood over him, his hand glowing an odd green, as if he had been close to performing a jutsu on Naruto.

"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. Let's just get back to training." Kakashi lingered hesitantly, before hobbling over to a tree to rest against.

"You're doing much better anyway. Soon, if you all keep this up, you'll be ready for real techniques." Injury forgotten Naruto and Sasuke were back to running up the trees before he could finish.

**Six hours later**

**BOOM**

Sakura looked back into the forest from behind Tazuna's house. 'That explosion had come from right around where Sasuke and Kakashi had been training Naruto!' There were a few miniature explosions, and a giant flame burst through the trees. Even if she weren't in his fan club, Sakura would have still recognized the near famous _Gokakyu no jutsu_ ripping into the sky.

"I hope he's alright." Trying to ignore the rampaging jutsu battle behind her, Sakura went back to the training Kakashi assigned. The floating leaves on her head and hands, spun steadily, so she got ready for the next part of her assignment; target practice while levitating five leaves.

**Back with Kakashi**

"_Katon: Hosenka no Jutsu!"_ Bouncing off a tree to their right, Sasuke let loose more small fireballs before he disappeared into the foliage. Unable to dodge in time, Naruto let loose his own _Hosenka _that he had barely copied, cancelling most of the attack before it reached him.

"Can't you do any better?" Sasuke's chased Naruto's taunt with a hail of kunai and shuriken, which forced Naruto bound away. It was pointless as his dodge sent him directly into one of the wires from another kunai. Before what had happened registered, more wired kunai danced around him, until he was trapped in a web of steel.

"You haven't seen anything yet, dumbass." There was a short pause as Naruto tried to escape the wires surrounding him. _"Fire style: Dragon technique!" _From all sides small flames ran along the wires. After coating every wire with fire, Sasuke exhaled, shooting out a giant flame that raced to where Naruto was trapped.

The puff of smoke was the only warning Sasuke got before he was sealed in from all sides by tree branches. Below him, Naruto had his hands submerged within the tree Sasuke had been using as a base.

"That's enough. You two have spent enough time training like this." There was silence for a few seconds, until Sasuke blasted his way out of the cage. "Besides, Sakura should be ready to practice with you two by tomorrow, so you shouldn't tire yourselves out." When he was completely sure that two wouldn't be killing each other until the next day, Kakashi started to limp back to Tazuna's home.

"Hey, sensei! I can speed this up!" With only that as a warning, Kakashi was lifted by a Naruto clone with metallic blue eyes. Seconds later, two Naruto's and Sasuke were bounding from tree to tree on their way back to Tazuna's house.

**Day Five**

Fifty Naruto stood under a large tree, each practicing a different jutsu. A few meters away, the real Naruto faced them, his eyes glowing. Where his sharingan tomoe normally sat, there were two swirls of red, pink and black giving his eyes an even stranger look.

"Damn! What's wrong with this?" Aside from trying to master the remaining jutsu he had learned from the scroll, he was trying to advance his sharingan as the last foot of the ancient length of information had mentioned in passing. Each time he activated it, he would still get a freaky color combo and strange traits like perfect memory, but nothing else.

Pushing chakra up into his eyes, his clones suddenly stopped moving, and a slight pain shot from his eyes into his head. 'What?" He tried lifting his arm, but for some reason, he could barely move it. Pulling the chakra away from his eyes, he saw it; one of his clones had just finished the hand seal of one of the jutsu. Pumping up his eyes again, the world almost completely froze. This went on for several tries before he realized he had unlocked another specific ability of the sharingan. "Great, another part of the sharingan. The chakra control those clones gave me is almost not worth it now." The new ability was annoying, but would probably be useful later anyway.

"I guess I can call that the _teisokugan (slow eyes)_." He slumped a little at still failing to use the sharingan. "What are you guys doing? I never had trouble with the sharingan before today. Those clones must have changed my chakra to be like theirs or something." Getting annoyed at the fact that his greatest advantage had been taken away after having it for such a short amount of time, Naruto tried manipulating his chakra in his eyes again.

Pulling chakra from his stomach, he channeled it upward and then increased the flow near his eyes. At the last second, he focused on a tiny bit of chakra near what might have been the edge of his iris. "Please don't be something like telescopic vision." The plea went unheard as chakra was pulled up to his eyes in ridiculous amounts, before dispersing itself. One bug, scared off by a stray _iron sand drizzle_ shot away madly, and Naruto tracked it for a few minutes until it his sight started getting blurry. Then he opened his eyes and was assaulted by almost crippling double vision. One layer was of the insect pursuit, the other his clones practicing. Deactivating it, a wave of nausea washed over him, but it quickly receded, leaving him annoyed but mostly unaffected.

"At least these are somewhat useful. You'll be the _senrogan (tracking eyes)._" Conflicted over being unable to active the normal sharingan, yet gaining cool new eye abilities, Naruto sat down and thought. 'Hmm, I bet if I have an accident like last time, I can find those clones. Then I can make them stop.' This solution didn't help him at all, because the only time he had reached them so far, they wanted to talk.

Sighing, he tried the chakra movement he had used for his memorizing eye and continued to study his clones and their jutsu.

In a high branch of a nearby tree, Sasuke watched amazed. Not only was Naruto related to him somehow, but he had already unlocked their families' bloodline and then some. "What other secrets have you been hiding?" Releasing the basic genjutsu he had placed over himself, Sasuke dropped from the tree to land next to his newly located cousin.

"Training hard I see." A there was a flash of metal as eight Naruto charged him, each wielding a spear. They lasted a few seconds before a large fire melted the group down. "Calm down idiot. It's me." Several Narutos looked hesitant before the Naruto with mutated eyes called them back to their jutsu.

"Why are you here?" The eyes bore into Sasuke, but they looked nothing like the sharingan. This version had white pentagons with red edges, making his eyes three distinct colors.

"I wanted to train with you, cousin. Now then, why do you have that bloodline, whatever it is?" They both jumped away into nearby trees as three different fire techniquespassed through where they had been standing. "I could teach you some of our family's techniques, in exchange for some of yours." The idea made Naruto pause. The Uchiha's were famous for having the largest jutsu library in all of Konoha, but he would be giving up his own family's jutsu.

"Maybe. Before I decide on that, what do you mean cousin?" With most of the clones practicing elsewhere now, the two boys comfortably returned to the ground.

"Didn't you know? Only an Uchiha can naturally have the sharingan. Therefore, unless you found a dead Uchiha with an active sharingan, removed their eyes, and then learned how to control it, even though Kakashi can't, you're at least my cousin, even though yours seems to be a bit odd. So, will you train with me or wont you?" The idea was sounding good; Naruto would get to train properly with someone, and Sasuke would study jutsu with him. Getting annoyed at the time it was taking Naruto, Sasuke prodded more.

"If it means that much you, you don't have to teach me how to do jutsu without seals. I just want to be able to do the jutsu." That sealed it for the blond headed ninja.

"You've got yourself a deal. Now then cousin, what were your plans for Wave country?" Naruto dispelled his clones, and the two young 'Uchiha' disappeared into the trees.


	5. Chapter 5

**Story**

Sasuke was the first into the bar, grudgingly henged to look more like his older brother. Bypassing some of Waves the dirtier, and weaker looking thugs, he strood straight to the edge of the room, were the workers with light ninja training were said to stay. Stopping directly in front of their table, and trying not to vomit in disgust at a ninja dragging a four year old girl under their table, he spoke.

"I have a job for you." As one, every person in the bar became oddly aware of his presence, giving Naruto his chance to slip shadow clones into the groups. Once the bar had mostly calmed and the weaker men had returned to their sludge, Sasuke pulled out a small wad of money. It was his own money, but the wealth of the Uchiha clan made giving up such a small amount insignificant. "You do your job well and far more than this will be yours. Call your men and meet me at the small warehouse closest to the new bridge at nine pm. If you do things right, you'll be rewarded well." He waved the money in front of their faces, then turned, and walked off. At the angry growls that would have probably signified a fight, he tossed the money into the air and escaped without notice as three dozen men tried to kill each other over it.

No one saw two boys above the bar, each forming a hand seal, glow with an aura of chakra and flicker away leaving two small craters in their wake.

**Back at the training forest**

"Ok, this is the easiest of my jutsu, but it'll take more chakra than most of your fire jutsu." Sasuke watched intently, as his newfound cousin preformed the seals repeatedly. After eight repetitions, the flow and seals were completely memorized so he stopped Naruto. The sharingan would have made it much easier, but as an Uchiha heir, some of its traits leaked over, even without activating it.

"Alright, I've got it." As Naruto's disbelieving look, Sasuke slowly formed the five seals, taking time to pushed roughly as much of his chakra into it as he would use for a his better fire jutsu. "_Shadow clone technique!" A_ single clone appeared, but unlike Naruto's, it seemed for much more exhausted than it should have been. A small push quickly banished it, leaving nothing but smoke and a tired Uchiha behind.

"You just don't have enough chakra." Naruto almost laughed. The most versatile, and easy jutsu Naruto knew, and the class genius could barely use it. "Forget it, you need to train way more to get this down. Want to try the original fire version of this? Shadow clones are the easiest, but I guess if you better at fire jutsu…" Another, similar set of seals were performed until Sasuke easily mimicked them. "Alright, you just need this." Firing a single Hosenka, Naruto set ablaze a dead tree that sat a few meters away from them.

"_Fire clone technique!"_ The clone built itself easily, quickly creating a second Sasuke who emitted a slight, dry heat. 'Told you I could.' It seemed to taunt before dissolving into embers.

"I didn't think you could really do it." The clone techniques had taken him forever, but Sasuke was almost done with two of them after ten minutes.

"Fire clones are easier that most other fire jutsu. Want to see some?" Both boys were back to forming seals as soon as Sasuke restored his chakra.

**Later**

Sasuke dropped from the tree he had been perched on a glanced at his watch. It was apparently seven forty pm, even though they had been training for what felt like an hour. "Might as well go find the idiot." Picking up several scrolls he had chosen to travel with and storing them in various pockets, Sasuke started his search for Naruto. The scorch marks and chipped boulders made an easy route to follow and soon he was a few meters away from the other Uchiha eyed boy.

"Hey, I think I figured out the normal sharingan again!" Jumping up to a branch level with Sasuke's Naruto proudly displayed his completely now red eyes, the black tomoe slowing their spin with his landing. Excess chakra poured from his eyes in small, undulating waves, but the fact that it was the proper sharingan made that easy to ignore.

'He's already up to three in one of his eyes! I can barely force some of the memorizing abilities, and he's almost matured his! If I can't even catch up to him, Itachi will be far too strong for me.' Nothing of this inner dialog escaped as Sasuke pointed upward towards the darkening sky and spoke. "Let's get going. I want time to rest before everything starts." Naruto nodded, and they both drew a quick breath before exploding out of sight.

**Eight pm**

Four men, despite their tattered appearance matching their surroundings, sauntered into the warehouse grinning wildly. Behind them, looking even worst than their leaders, trailed thirty more, their eyes constantly glaring through the misty darkness, searching for danger.

"Right on time." There was a scream behind them. Looking back, all their followers had been sealed either in roots, or inside of large earth mounds. "That's a little more fair." The voice whispered something quickly and then started drifting lazily around them.

"Eyes!" One of the four had noticed something odd about their surroundings. There was an almost solid wall of glowing eyes on one side of the room. The bear sized fox laying taunt next to it didn't help much either. The beast grinned, displaying rows of fist-sized teeth before partially retreating into the darkness.

"Yes, I suppose you've noticed my companions." The monster's retreat gave them a chance to look around, and almost immediately, they recognized their employer. With less alcohol in their systems, they were immediately able to remember his status as one of the strongest rouge nin what entered Wave. "That's besides the point. You will purchase any items I find myself wanting, keep note of all Nin you see in Wave, and report all findings to me. If you can manage that much, I suppose I could reward you with you lives, and my wealth." They didn't get much of a chance to refuse the command before a cruel laugh surrounded them, and they each descended into personalized nightmares. One by one, they dropped.

As the last man pissed himself and passed out, Naruto dissolved all of the clones he had created. The fox they had formed with a joined transformation disappeared, and Sasuke dropped his own illusion. "I suppose we should release them. I've fix everything from here as long as Tazuna completes his side of the bargain." Naruto formed a dozen shadow clones to search the men for anything useful. Upon finding five scrolls with intricate markings on them, the clones were dispersed hiding two small blasts of chakra from any prying eyes.

Another set of sharingan eyes slowly appeared scanning the dust clouds. Once the two teens had successfully gotten out of his line of sight, Itachi's eyes faded back to their natural onyx color and he stared mutely at the area his younger brother had been in. "Live Sasuke. One day, when I have accomplished my journey, I will fight you again, and then I hope that you will be able to aid mission." Itachi morphed into a villager he has seen at some point and casually made his way back to the inn he had been resting. "Leader will find his quite interesting."

**Ten kilometers away**

Stretching his weaken muscles, Zabuza easily shredded the bandages on his neck, with a light tug. Casting a small slate of ice on his arm aside and ignoring his hunter nin's protests, he tested his sword arm. "Two more days, Haku. Then, we will complete this job." Leaving his massive blade on the ground, Zabuza settled in a cot nearby. "Rest up. If those brats are as good as they were last time, we'll need all the sleep we can get." Haku silently agreed, before propping herself up against a wall.

'Of course master. First though, I wish to pay a certain ninja a visit.' Zabuza listened as his apprentice formed an ice mirror on the wall she was leaning on and disappeared.

"Haku shouldn't be exposed to choices like this. The poor kid doesn't know how to handle them. As long as she gets back soon so we can strike right after I heal. You have two days, kid." The dialog was soon followed by steady, light breathing from the sleeping silent-killer.

**Author's Notes:**

none right now.


	6. Chapter 6

**Story**

Returning to Tazuna's house, Naruto and Sasuke were immediately assaulted by their team's konoichi. "Where have you two been?" Sasuke ignored her and redirected the attention to his blond teammate with a shrug. "Well Naruto?" Successful, Sasuke drifted past her and up to his room, probably to meditate,e leaving Naruto with Sakura.

"WE have been training. Kakashi said Zabuza would attack soon, so were getting the most out of the little time we have left." Happy with his answer, Naruto also brushed past her, looking for his teacher. If they could get another day or two in of training with Kakashi, they might be ready for the upcoming attack.

"Don't you just…" Naruto was gone before she could turn to follow him. _'No! Even Naruto is ignoring me now.' _Inner Sakura exclaimed angrily that Naruto was just an idiot and would never surpass her, but Sakura knew that was a lie. If Sasuke could tolerate training with Naruto for several days, then he had to be strong.

"I'll just have to train even harder than they do!" Inner Sakura cheered her favorite phrase _'True love concurs all!'_ and Sakura calmly went back to lifting small stones nearby with chakra.

**With Sasuke**

Sasuke lay balanced on only his left hand, occasionally raising and lowering himself, in a deep state of deep meditation, as 'How can I surpass them?', repeated in his head. After an hour, he started hearing feint speech, but he ignored it assuming it was simply Sakura trying to get his attention. After another thirty minutes, he started retreating from this state so he could shift another one of his clan's mutated training positions, when the voice grew clearer.

'If you wish for power, then I could help you.' The short phrase gained his attention, but when he was back to normal completely, it was gone. Shaking away the desire to find the origin of the voice and gain power, Sasuke switched hands, and sank into a meditative state again as his left arm recovered from the strain he had put on it.

'You are not ready for you true heritage yet. If you set your evil free, my power will be yours to command. Kill and we will grow…' Blocking the odd voice haunting his mind out, Sasuke returned to calculating how much training he would need to match his two sibling's skill. The offer of power, however, stayed in his head. With it, his last memory of Itachi's attack

"I will never be cast aside like that again." If the voice really could give him power, than Sasuke wouldn't be the pride of Konoha much longer. "Forgive me brother." Even he wasn't sure which he was talking about.

**Naruto**

"Hey, Tsunami. Have you seen Kakashi?" Naruto had located the daughter of the bridge builder, but so far, he hadn't found anyone else.

"Sorry, but father and Kakashi and father have all been going to the bridge to monitor the progress. It should be finished in two days." After thanking her, Naruto drifted back outside to continue his training. Taking a deep breath, he formed one hand seal and summoned chakra throughout his body. The spiritual energy pored off him, supercharging his muscles and activating his sharingan automatically. Then, the glowing boy dashed into the forest, body almost craving the strain.

Once he reached the densest part of the forest Naruto stopped to release the breath he had been holding in for the minute he had been running, simultaneously releasing chakra to stop the drain. "This should be good enough." Smiling to himself and forming one of the few seals he still used, Naruto made a hundred clones, which in turn each made another nine. "Alright, if we want to keep our advantage over everyone, we'll need to be able to form seals so we can copy things quickly." The clones nodded. "Alright. You three hundred practice our jutsu, until your fingers fall off and then disperse yourselves. Two hundred of you watch them practice to see if there are any ways to improve." Half the Naruto clones took off west to follow his orders.

"Two hundred of whoever remains should pair up and try to make new moves with our bloodlines; if you can, figure out exactly how to control activating the different parts of the sharingan. The rest will be working with me." Groaning at getting the most boring part, two hundred Naruto walked away to find a good place to study their sharingan.

The three hundred remaining Naruto quickly prepared themselves for the upcoming fight, his favorite way to practice with extra clones. Each reinforced himself with the small amount of chakra they had, and lunged. Borrowing from Sasuke's tiajutsu style, Naruto kicked five up above him, and jumped away from the next five bushin attacks. The five clones he kicked then violently exploded due to the _Great clone explosion_ technique he had been working on attaching to them, taking twenty five of their slowest brethren with them.

Eight clones behind him launched various fire jutsu, but luckily, the flames lost power quickly thanks to lack of control and pure chakra. The attempt earned each a kick in the face, and a punch into a different area of the clone swarm, destroying roughly forty total.

'This is a perfect chance to try that new combo.' Not bothering to fall into a fighting stance, Naruto lunged backward into the army of clones, activating his sharingan as soon as the first two were beside him. '_Fire style: burning dragon claw technique._' Rang in his head, as he formed the seals for the _'transformation jutsu',_ once for each hand. The large claws that replaced his hands immediately ignited and the clones nearby started showing signs of trying to use _Mudslide Torrent_ when he sliced through ten of them nearby.

The heat travelled through both the clones and the air between them making causing angry welts and large blistering on the scorched skin of several others. His shoulders, which were completely untransformed, grew red in irritation as the heat radiated back at him.

"Thank god I remembered to transform my arms." His voice was followed by a grunt as a clone kicked his stomach from an odd angle. Like a magical beacon, the clones Naruto hit earlier almost didn't give a warning as they exploded around him, starting a chain reaction. The clones who didn't foresee this were caught in the blast, extending the self destruction cycle by an excruciating minute.

Naruto, without normal hands to perform a replacement jutsu was helpless as the techniques flung him about from self-destructing copies to their exploding allies, never getting a chance to escape or even perform a seal-less jutsu. Once the barrage was over, the three remaining clones dropped from the trees, they had taken refuge in and inspect the scene.

"Naruto?" Trees had been uprooted, large stones were pounded into gravel, and in the epicenter of this disaster lay Naruto. His dragon arms had been de-scaled, and were rapidly becoming more human, leaving nothing to protect them from the sword sized stone fragments and wood chippings. Amazingly, the damage had been concentrated on his arms and legs, leaving his head and chest unharmed; that wasn't what had drawn their attention. Wherever there had been some wound or injury, a red chakra had manifested, sewing the area back together. The several spikes that had embedded themselves in him flaked away, leaving soon to be healed, gaping wounds.

After a few minutes, all injuries had healed over, and the original Naruto was snoring in the large crater, his arms looking sunburned and raw. The trio of clone looked at each other, then back at Naruto, then at each other again.

"What now? We only have a little time left." The other two clones shrugged, so the Naruto clones dispelled themselves gently, hoping for the best.

**Within the seal**

Kyuubi tensed, lying within his cage, before lunging forward and slamming into the bar that held the strongest seal. Not making any progress at directly breaking the damaged seal, he collected himself and with as much dignity as he could muster, stalked deeper into the cell. Near the back, on a bed of chains that had once tried to restrain him, he settled down and prepared to sleep.

Where he had been lying, a complex swirl of carvings pulsed. In response to the pulse, red chakra rolled of the giant fox and oozed into the indentations. What started as a something like a liter of thick red liquid, from each glob of chakra, slowly rolled through thin branching paths, half of it turning into large amounts of thinner blue liquid. The other half continued following almost the same path as its blue counterpart, occasionally dribbling into further branching channels.

Suddenly, one of the larger branches of the red chakra ran into a large hole and oozed down smoothly onto a crystal half submerged in a reservoir. Within the large crystallized red stone, sat a Naruto, whose sharingan eyes spun with the demonic energy flowing over him, creating a black ring in place of normal tomoe. The red chakra flowed over the stone, then slid off the edges, adding to the liquefied energy already collected.

Once the pulses that drew the chakra subsided, the red chakra swirled around the stone, lapping against it from all sides. After a minute of this, all of the chakra condensed into a new layer, making the stone a few millimeters thicker than it was earlier. Then, a small trickle of red chakra leaked down upon it, starting the process anew.

**AN:**

Almost ready to release the new chapter. I just need to finish editing these already released ones.


	7. Chapter 7

Naruto yawned as shook off the dreams, then, as he did every morning, we stood and tried to find ramen. After three steps, in preparation for the upcoming breakfast, his mind started functioning again and he realized something was wrong. Springing away from the thick blanket he was wrapped in, he barely managed to take cover in the trees just outside of a massive crater, before a teenage girl carrying a small basket walked by.

"Hello?" the girl looked around confused, and slowly, Naruto eased out of his defensive position, behind the tree. "Are you still here?" She set her parcel down, and wandered over to the trees, peaking around them.

"Who are you?" Trying his best to think of how she would know he was there, he nearly fell when the girl returned to her package, and threw it right up to his hiding place.

"My name is Haku. I was out gathering herbs for my sick uncle when I found you lying in that crater. I've been taking care of you for the last day or so." Unwrapping the small bundle, Naruto found the items made by his transformed clones, and a few common medicines made by herbs.

"Thanks. I was wondering why everything seemed breezy." Too surprised at the fight with his clones ending so horribly, Naruto failed to think about the stranger seeing him naked. Putting the few remaining articles of clothing that he left on, he found himself extremely lacking. Apparently, chakra was very destructive when exposed to normal clothing, but transformed clones were barely effected. To make up for the missing parts, he took the clothes back off, and rolled all of it into a small ball. "Don't peek, or interrupt me. This is the first time I've tried this." Haku was already walking away to continue her herb gathering.

Soothed by the lack of response, Naruto placed the clothing ball on a nearby branch, formed his favorite hand-seals, and using as much chakra as he could, turned it into a clone. The resulting Naruto copy then used the transformation jutsu, and changed into the orange jumpsuit Naruto had grown to love. Unbeknownst to the original Naruto, the seal on his stomach glowed for a second, before the clone was broken down, then absorbed, stopping him from creating another internal clone.

"What were you doing out here, anyway? It isn't exactly fun to lay naked in the middle of large, rough craters, so I assume that wasn't intentional." Naruto hopped down from his tree to get a better look at his new friend, and found a lean girl carrying a medium sized basket. From the odd smell coming from it, it seemed to be almost completely filled with herbs and some medicines recently made from them.

"I was training my special techniques." Naruto eventually blurted out. After pausing to figure out what to tell her, he settled on something that seemed as conservative as he needed to be with his friend. "I'm training to become the Hokage... so everyone will respect me. Once I do, I'll help my brother fulfills his goals."

The girl…Haku, then smiled, and nodded her approval. "You will truly become powerful if you have someone to protect, and aid." A quick look at a watch he hadn't noticed on her earlier shrank her gentle smile. "It's been a while. You should get back to your brother."

"Ya, the idiot would probably get killed or something if I'm not there to help him. Thanks for everything. Bye!" Naruto ran into the trees until he considered himself a decent distance away. Pausing only to get onto a tree, he was almost out of earshot when he heard the girl call out to him.

"By the way, I'm a boy!" Almost surprising Naruto off the tree he was balanced on. Once he regained his balance, he was happily off to find his clan-mate, and his team, with yet another friend to add to his short list.

"I'm sorry, but that is all I can do to make this fair. Fight me like I'm a boy, and maybe my hands won't be stained with the blood of someone as innocent as you." A thin wall crystallized out of the ever-present, light mist and within seconds, Haku was flitting through small ice mirrors lodged in trees.

**At Tsunami's house.**

Two large men walked out of the house, one carrying a small child, and the other a middle-aged woman. Despite struggles from their packages, they made it halfway to the tree line before an orange comet burst out of the forest, and landed three meters ahead of them.

"Put Tsunami and Inari down!" Once the glow from the orange man's entrance died down, the two mercenaries almost fell down laughing. This short, blond-haired little boy was trying to play ninja with them. With a quick glance at each other, the mercenaries dropped their hostages, drew their swords, and rushed the child.

In response, Naruto rushed them back, with red trickling into his eyes. Jumping meters over their heads, he inhaled deeply, and never taking his eyes off them, prepared his chakra one of the strongest techniques he knew. '_Mythical flame technique._' He thought for a second, before he reached the peak of his jump, and released the jutsu.

One massive burst of fire rushed straight down onto them, and Naruto continued to pump chakra into the technique, until he stopped to breath. The flames however, continued to burn, unlike previous tries with the technique, so two large crackling flames stood where the mercenaries had been.

When he finally landed, Naruto ran over to his two charges and untied them, ignoring the two massive bonfires. "Those two ninjas have probably escaped by now, unless their still watching us, but they probably know better than to actually attack us." Inari move to speak, but his mother shushed him so Naruto could continue. "I don't think they'll come back, but I'll leave some clones here just in case. Where is everyone?"

Tsunami stood for a few second, mouth agape. Then, when she realized who was talking to her, she stumbled backward slightly with Inari in tow, adding a few feet in distance between them. "Everyone went to the bridge, because today is the last day of construction. They thought the workers might get attacked, to completely crush our village's hope."

Naruto flitted through hand-seals for a second, before an dozen clones appeared around them. "Guard these two with your lives. They better be safe in the house when they get back or else you all in trouble." The clones chorused 'yes sir.' and Naruto was back in the forest, chakra burning through his veins, and boosting his jumps.

"Uh, Narutos? Why don't you all scan the area in case there are more enemy ninja around." They debated among themselves for a minute before agreeing. Happy that they wouldn't be bored to death, they leapt into the forest, occasionally scuffling with each other playfully. As soon as they were a reasonable distance away, Inari was promptly sick, memories of other deaths rushing through his head.

"Mom, those men didn't escape, did they?" He had taken a few minutes to try to compose himself, but as he gestured towards the two small clumps of ash where the mercenaries had been attacked, he almost vomited again. Tsunami shook her head, woefully. The very fact that Inari was only sick, and not crying in terror made her heart ache.

'So many people have died. So many of out friends and family were executed publicly that he doesn't fear death. At least he's still sick in its presence.' Shaking off her own fear of the orange clad ninja, Tsunami grabbed Inari's hand, gently lead him to a small marsh several tree's were sinking into. Once there, she picked up a large glob of moist earth, and hauled it over to the now remains of the mercenaries.

"Naruto didn't know they weren't ninja, and he certainly doesn't think he killed them. If we can help him by keeping it that way, then we will have to bear that burden." After dropping her second clump of earth, Inari ran past her, to the mercenaries. In his arms, lay a large glob of soil.

**The bridge**

Ten men charged away from the bridge, sake on their minds, and small wads of cash in their hands. "That's the last of them, Kakashi." The copy nin nodded without looking up from his book, then let his lone eye raise from the page.

"Good, since we can only expect Zabuza to be hanging out somewhere, waiting for them to leave. He's rouge, but at least he's honorable enough to leave civilians alone." Kakashi then glanced toward the end of the bridge, where the worker had left to, only to have his sight blocked by a thick fog.

"Sakura, please guard the bridge builder. Sasuke, get ready to fight Zabuza's associ..." Kakashi didn't get to finish before a large sword sliced through where he had been a second earlier.

"You think too highly of me, Kakashi. I just wanted to defeat the great copy nin of Konoha in a fair fight." The sword struck from above, but Kakashi was once again out of the way before it landed. "Of course, your students and Tazuna are still here, so their fair-play." Kakashi hurriedly rushed to his three wards, while forming hand seals for a technique.

"_Hosenka no jutsu!"_ The flame cleared the mist for a second, and the almost silent footsteps of the water assassin stopped as he lunged to the side to avoid it.

"Are you planning on wearing me out, then attacking with your ally? You against me and my students against you ally, unless you really think you need the help." It took a second for Kakashi's haite to be cast aside, but between him removing it and it hitting the ground, the mist partially cleared, and the hunter nin from the last fight stood before them.

"Trying to jibe me into doing something stupid? I've always wanted to take you down fairly, your suggestion simply drew the rules. Haku, play with the little kids until I finish entertaining myself." The child drew a senbon, and launched it at Sasuke, ignoring Sakura and Tazuna.

Before the needle had a chance to reach his kunai, a thin pink wire of chakra latched onto it and tilted it upward, forcing Sasuke to dive away instead of blocking it. Rolling, the Uchiha once again was forced to spring to the side while a flurry of needles peppered the abandoned ground. When he had finally gained a sure foot, Haku charged at the boy, three needles draw in each hand. Sakura's panic apology was lost as the two bloodline nin slashed each other up with their chosen weapons, kunai from a pouch and ice needles yanked out of the air.

'He's good. I can't fight offensively for more than a few moves before he overpowers me. I suppose it's time to really bring out my power.' Haku thought. 'Naruto chose a powerful person to protect.'

--

Kakashi blocked the massive sword once again with two extended kunai he kept for fights with weapon users, before springing away and throwing three normal kunai. Metal clashed with metal, but as he drew more, the air to his side was disturbed, and once again, Kakashi blocked the giant sword. So far in the fight, the mist removed all the value of his sharingan, with him unable to cast genjutsu from it or get any insight into Zabuza's attacks.

"You wish you could stop this jutsu, right? Just try to cancel it and you'll be mine!" the sound echoed around him, destroying the chance of locating Zabuza with his voice.

After jumping over an unexpected knee level slash, Kakashi snapped through a short set of seals. '_Thunder tag technique._' Electricity sparked from his hand and latched onto the large metal blade that almost decapitated him a second later.

"What's wrong? Don't your little tricks work in the mist?" The voice once again came from all sides, but the small hidden locket Kakashi had received from his teacher tugged him towards the right. "So sad…the great Copy-nin was defeated because it was too humid for him." The Water demon moved to slash Kakashi again, but suddenly, Kakashi completed another jutsu.

"Water style: Duel serpents technique!" The mist pulled into a ball of water overhead, then siphoned off into two large snakes, which immediately charged for the rouge-nin. Zabuza dashed away, while sheathing his sword to his back to free up his hands. Ten short seals later, from the ocean condensed into a smooth water dragon, whose massive form towered over the bridge. With a gurgling roar, it charged the two snakes while Kakashi closed the distance between him and his adversary.

--

Fireballs flew through the air, always being intercepted by needles or missing by a step. For a second, Sasuke stopped to draw breath, but it was forced from his lungs when he was sliced by several needles, and then punched in the stomach.

Steadying his self, he drew a few fast seals that his new brother could do in his sleep. "Fire clone jutsu." The clone steamed for a second, before the two Uchiha launched their bodies away from what quickly became a pile of crossed ice shards.

Pumping chakra into the whole body, the real Sasuke ran head on into Haku, and they briefly struggled in rapid tiajutsu, before he dodged away into the safety of the heavier mist. Where he had been, a streak of flames evaporated the mist, and scorched the ground, giving him a small chance to breath.

Those two breaths cost him, as a needle shot from further into the mist, pinning him between it and a needle that had come from behind. Picking what to sacrifice, he twisted himself slightly, and blocked one needle with his arm and the other with his leg, before he was kicked out of the air, and away from a hail of attacks.

The fire clone, who had taken the brunt of Haku's attack after Sasuke blocked the first two needles, was pierced with needles from all sides and angles. Blood dripping from it's mouth, it threw one last kunai towards where the mist was still thick, before it exploded into a wave of heat, evaporating the steadily thinning mist in that section of the bridge.

"You seem to have great potential. I will be honored to end your life with one of my best techniques." Haku forced the icy patches she had been using on the ground to melt, before it and the last of the mist between Haku and Sasuke condensed into a large ball of water. Expecting this, Sasuke released the favorite technique of his clan into it, trying to evaporate it, or disrupt the chakra building it, but the _grand fireball _only seemed to waste chakra as the evaporated water was absorbed back into the ball.

This was the only warning Sasuke got, before it split several times, and made a large ring in the air around him. Then, as Haku disappeared once again, it broke into sections that hardened into frozen orbs. As soon as they formed, they each started firing frozen needles at him, independently targeting him. Sasuke raced the sprays of senbon for a few meters, before Haku returned to darting around him, turning his mad sprint, into a running tiajutsu fight.

Dodging into one of her attack, Sasuke managed to get Haku between the ice and him for a second, before she replaced her own body with one of the larger ice orbs. It shredded his left arm, and left a few solid needles in his right, before he kicked the ball into the sky, and shattered three noticeably smaller ice launchers. The victory was short lived as he looked around himself, and found nothing but orbs of shimmering, floating ice…

--

Zabuza sliced through an attacking water dragon, before jumping onto the head of one of his own. The resonating chakra in the air was almost as good as eyes, as he blasted where most of Kakashi's chakra was coming from with three simultaneous water vortexes, destroying the last of the water creatures, but not hitting anything similar to a human body.

That human in question, was above the battlefield, replicating his strangest students attack. Ten clones provided him with launch pads, until gravity got the better of them, and they fell back to the fight, each preparing a wind, water, or fire jutsu. At the peak of his extreme jump, Kakashi closed his normal eye, and pumped extra chakra into the other, causing the sharingan's tomoe to spin with the excess chakra inside of it. Then, using the entire remains of the first half of his chakra supply, he flew through twenty seals, falling directly over where he hoped his clones had forced the water demon.

"I suppose you will always aid me in battle, teacher. _Uzumaki style: thunder prince jutsu!_" The light chakra trail left by his fall ignited with crackling energy, which then drove through him, following his path, and tracking the magnetic tag he had left on Zabuza's sword earlier. Two meters above Zabuza, a wall of ice orbs intercepted the attack, and fired needles up towards the jutsu stealer, just as they were annihilated.

"_Dragon style: dragon breath technique_." A familiar Uchiha shouted from the side, and a stream of flames melted through the attack that could have easily killed him.

The still falling Copy-nin added to the attack with his own high speed Hosenka no jutsu, giving him the space he needed to activate his first gate, and land safely. Releasing the gate, he was nearly ripped in half by Zabuza's thrown sword, and a dozen needles, but he blocked the blade with his extended kunai, and several normal kunai intercepted the needles. Running towards the middle of the bridge, he once again dodged the sword, which was returning , via chakra strings, to its master.

--

"You should be proud you survived this long. This however, will be my last jutsu, and your last fight." Water around them didn't get a chance to collect, as frozen walls built themselves around the two children. Taken back by the speed of the formation, Sasuke completely missed Haku sliding into one of these.

As the transition was completed, reflections of the hunter-nin appeared in all of the mirrors, and Sasuke was struck down by an almost invisible onslaught of needles. After defending for two straight minutes, the attacks slowed for a moment, giving Sasuke time to do his own jutsu.

"_Grand fireball_!" The fireball roared through the air, until it hit a mirror. Then, for a few seconds the flame licked at the ice, trying the melt through it, but the ice was constantly reforming using the evaporated water from the attack. Finally, when Sasuke let up, his most natural jutsu seemed to have failed him. Turning to another mirror, he noticed the robes the hunter-nin wore had small scorch marks along a side. 'I just need a stronger jutsu.' He started the seals for the _dragon breath flame_, but an explosion stopped both teens in their tracks.

**Boom!**

The blast came from outside the dome of ice, but the gaps where too small to see outside. At the pause of his opponent, Sasuke promptly started the dragon flame jutsu, but as he was exhaling, a familiar voice shattered his concentration, and redirected his attack to the crack between two of the floating mirrors. It easily decimated the area, and partially melted the actual mirrors, but that seemed to make things worse, as the owner of the distracting voice leapt into the hole before it reformed itself.

"Hey, why are you in here? Did I miss something? Where are the rouge ninjas?" Naruto, clueless as ever, had wasted his perfect vantage point and his great ability by joining him in the hunter-nin's attack dome. Even in the face of what probably meant the Uchiha clan's destruction, Naruto was as much of an idiot as ever. It would have been funny if they weren't about to die.

"Watch out, this guy uses ice and fast attacks." Naruto nodded. As his head rose, his eyes went red, and the three tomoe within, began rotating. Repeating the same short hand-seal combination that he was famous among their group for, he jumped into the air, clones appearing, and following suit.

All but one of the flying Narutos were sliced out of the air, as needles maimed the group rapidly. That single Naruto bounced off a mirror above, and seemed to chase after air, before he quickly turned in another direction. Before he could reach another mirror, he appeared to be swatted out of the air, head moving in the direction he must have been hit from.

Hitting harder that seemingly possible, he rolled from where he landed, and summon more copies to duplicate the earlier effect, before drawing a large breath. Catching on, Sasuke redid his last jutsu, and together they fired up to the central ceiling mirror. Eyes picking up on something faster than he knew he could comprehend, Sasuke saw something disrupt the flames, but it was not needed. The hunter nin, barely avoided both attacks, falling to the ground instead of being completely incinerated.

As time seemed to slow down, and Sasuke did the hand seals for the _Grand fireball jutsu_, Naruto spewed blue fire at the 'boy' and chased him from the ground to a mirror, then back across the arena. As the fire split the field, and went from melting mirror to melting mirror, a blurry figure slid from ice shards, and slush, and then danced around the attack to an un-melted ice wall. Naruto released the attack to breathe, but the short gasp of air let the hunter nin escape from the arena temporarily, and reappear behind him. 'His' image in only one mirror, Haku constructed two small frozen orbs to launch his attack.

"Look out!' Sasuke tried to say activating their body flicker, improved from the one Naruto stole from Kakashi. Charging at speed that seemed natural with his steadily improving sight, he neither spoke, nor seemed to move fast enough as the thin needles flew towards his brother. Grabbing onto Naruto, he whipped him around, and shielded the shorter boy from a flurry of attacks, that never seemed to stop. As blood dripped from his neck to his ankles, he managed to look past Naruto and see his own torn form fall in a mirror, red eyes replacing his black ones, and a single comma swirling slowly in each. Then, darkness crept up from the edge of his vision, leaving only his own reflection in his sight.

Slowly, the shadows around him congealed into his older brother, whose sharingan seemed to adumbrate his iris and pupil. Those eyes pierced his soul, but Sasuke drew the little strength he had left, and glared up at him, his sharingan almost glowing in the darkness. Frowning as if he had been disappointed, Itachi closed his eyes slowly, bones ripping though his back. As the new additions to his skeleton grew flesh and the bones became recognizably bat-like wings, Itachi took to the air in a just of wind, leaving only darkness behind. A whisper of "You are worthy.' rang through the thick air. Weakness slowly overtaking him, Sasuke closed his eyes.

--

"Sasuke!" Naruto watched said boy fell onto the ground, needles covering all visible areas of his body. Using something he had only briefly studied, he pulled at the metal and ice with his chakra. They responded quickly by flying past him into one of the gaping holes from the Uchiha duo's attack. Without the thin weapons, small punctures and cuts released their torrents of blood freely, wetting the back of the now tattered Uchiha brand shirt. Then the bleeding slowed to a stop, and Sasuke's wheezes grew quiet.

"You killed Sasuke." Without most of the mirrors to use, the hunter-nin released her jutsu, and stepped out of the thin layer of ice.

"Give up now and I may be able to spare you." Haku, charred, but still able to fight stepped forward, talking in as calm of a voice as she could manage. She had slain many ninja throughout her career, but the most dangerous were, almost always, those who were protecting their special people.

"You killed him!" The red eyes that had been rotating earlier formed a perfect circle, as they gazed up to stare Haku down. The air pulsed, before red chakra seeped from his eyes and stomach until it covered his body lightly, and heated the air around him. Everything about him seemed to grow tainted, as his whiskers grew into thick slashes, his teeth and nails elongated and his already demonic looking eyes developed a line splitting the circle through the center. Zabuza's mist jutsu finally cancelled, so all eyes easily locked onto the red figure crouched within the melted mirrors.

"You needn't die as well. Please submit." Haku didn't step back, but every instinct she had honed over the several years of studying under Zabuza screamed to run.

"YOU KILLED MY BROTHER**!**"the ground rippled like water under Naruto's feet, and he seemed to radiate evil for a brief moments. **"I'LL KILL YOU!" **A malevolent wave of energy swept over the bridge, bending the metal, and cracking the cement. Only the bloody Uchiha at Naruto's feet seemed to be unaffected, as the energy lapped at them like the ocean's waves.

Haku finally took a step back, but the enraged boy in front of her took notice of only his target, and running in a line through her attacks, punched her in the stomach. Haku started to double over, but the boy hadn't finished yet, and proceeded to knee her in the head, warping her metal alloy mask. Launched across the bridge by the attack, she almost hit the ground, before Naruto was above her, and punched her into the stone, taxing her heavily chakra enforced body. Even then, she was unfortunate enough to bounce off the ground, and back up to the almost magically fast kick in the stomach, splitting her bottom two ribs along way.

This time, she did reach the ground, and skipped across the concrete like a smooth stone across water, before she bashed against one of the bridge's support beams. Desperately trying to escape, she built ice walls between her, and the demon-boy, but as she slipped into her own, he plowed through the others, and grabbed her arm. Screaming both internally, and externally, Haku did the only jutsu she could think of helping her at the time; the simplest and weakest jutsu she had left.

"Icy fingers: frozen assassination technique." Through her damaged mask, she coughed up blood onto the arm as she whispered the technique, secrecy long forgotten. Her hand latched onto his arm, and glowed a cool blue, before steam rose from the area. That spot on his arm, froze over for a moment, then seemed to return to normal, before the pain reached Naruto's simplified mind and he threw her away from himself on instinct.

--

As Naruto started glowing red, Kakashi hands glided through various hidden pockets. Finding the scroll he needed, he yanked it out, spun it on his pointer finger, and stopped to the tiny opening. In a practiced motion he bit his thumb and unfurled the scroll midair, whipped his blood down the center, from end to end. Then, he fluidly closed the scroll, and propped it on his wrist while forming a short chain of hand-seals.

"_Earth style._" He finished the jutsu's seals and slammed the scroll into the ground, alerting his target that their battle continued. "_Tracking fang technique._" Writing coursed over the ground under him, before a mass of cracks appeared, then stopped. Seconds later, the concrete beneath Zabuza's feet was ripped apart like dirt and with almost rabid ferocity, howling dogs latched onto his arms, legs and shoulders.

"Those are my personal ninja-dogs. And this, is one of the only original jutsu in my entire arsenal." He crouched while forming seals with his right arm, before punching the ground. There was a twitter of electricity, signaling the technique was ready, and Kakashi charged as fast as he could, nearly opening the first chakra gate on instinct, but stopping himself, already too injured to safely battle with it. His hand, which had been resting on the ground, was sang with blue electricity and he almost left a glowing streak as he ran at speeds only well trained Nin, or Uchiha could either manage or even see.

"No!" A female voice gurgled, but Kakashi was already pronouncing the technique.

--

Haku finally came to a stop, bones all over her body broken . Resigning herself to death, she dropped the jutsu that held her mask on and almost let her body go limp against the cool chill of the newly completed bridge's support beams, before she heard barking and howling. Looking past the red blob once again stampeding towards her, she managed to see Zabuza pinned down under a mass of dogs, before her instincts went into overdrive.

Screaming "NO!" as best as she could, she formed an ice mirror in front of her, and launched her near dead body into it, a blood stained hand brushing against the furious claw of her pursuer who was luckily stopped by the metal she had been resting on. Using the speed gifted by her bloodline, she closed the distance between Naruto and Zabuza at a rate she knew could push her already broken ribs into her lungs and destroy what remained of her arm and leg muscles, but her last mission called too strongly to stop. In front of Zabuza, she made a mirror of ice once again, before flinging herself out, and into the running copy nin.

--

With milliseconds to spare, Kakashi cancel the jutsu, merely sending the critiacally injured hunter-nin flying into her master and de-summoning his dogs. If he had opened the first gate, he would have had no choice but to cut straight through her, and try to get Zabuza as well.

The two rolled a few meters, before Zabuza managed to stop them with his one good arm. The dogs had torn his shoulders and arms apart with their fangs, and his leg weren't much better. Both were out of the fight, so Kakashi retrieved his dropped haite, and blocked the sharingan, stopping the chakra consumption that came with it.

Back with the two rouge ninjas, Zabuza was gushing blood, and Haku seem not to far from the same, but as always, there was something left for Zabuza to do. "You're to good a person to die like this with a master like me." He mumbled to her near unconscious body. Trying to respond, she almost passed out, but Zabuza continued before she could force herself to succeed. "We both know I'm dead, but I can still save you. If you hadn't taken such good care of me..." For the last few days, she had been pumping him full of nothing but medicines, and his weak bloodline would make sure he still retained him. All it did was keep his body strong for long periods of time, while maintaining anything in his blood. Poisons would easily kill him, but this one instance, he was almost happy it had plagued him his whole life.

He then bashed his wrist against the large sword now strapped to his back, then brought the cut to her mouth. "Drink up kid. I don't want you coming to the place I'm going for a long time. Find a new master, or find a new purpose." Haku acknowledged the order by draining blood from the cut, pulling various medicines and body enhancing serums into herself. The very same serums she had injected into him only a few days ago, to speed his recovery from the first fight.

"All my possessions and assets have already been signed over to you, so do with them what you see fit." Haku gained a warm glow, and some of the lighter bruises faded. "You made me proud." Zabuza's blood trickled slowly from his several wounds, and with the last of his strength, he cast aside the ever-present, human sized blade. "I always told the others I would die like this; bloody and torn, next to my one love. I'll miss those bastards…" Silence consumed its swordsman master.

--

Naruto, shook his head, before gazing back at the bridge. He felt, for lack of better phrasing, new. He stood up, and almost stumbled at how unnaturally light his body seemed, before he remembered what was happening. Glancing around, he immediately saw a melted and dented support beam to the bridge, which, from what he could tell, seemed to have been hit by a flying bull.

Ignoring the haunting ache that came when he related the dent to something crashing into it, he ran to the other end of the bridge, where Sakura, Tazuna, and Kakashi were tending to Sasuke and a badly injured girl.

"Took you long enough idiot. I could have done it better though." Hearing that insult, probably made Naruto the happiest he had ever been, to date. Grinning, he sat by his comrades and the two strangers to their group before a question that seemed important popped into his head.

"Where the hell did that bastard go? The one that almost killed Sasuke." Kakashi rolled his eye and poured another serum into Sasuke's and then Haku's mouths. When the vial was empty, he tossed it over his shoulder and responded.

"She is out cold in front of you." Kakashi blocked the punch to her head, and twisted Naruto around to pin him. Surprisingly, Naruto put up a decent fight compared to when Kakashi had done the same weeks ago, but even the increasing power and potential of a demon host couldn't beat experience and skill. Once Naruto had calmed down a bit, he was released and Kakashi continue. "She will be our ward until she's healed and ready to live on her own." At Narutos angry growl, his eye curved slightly. "She didn't want to kill Sasuke. If she did, then she would have done so when we first encountered Zabuza. She is doing what all ninja have to do, follow orders."

She twitched, but continued to breath lightly and Naruto couldn't help but feel sympathy toward her. "I won't attack her, but if she tries anything, she won't get the chance to see me before I destroy her." Happy at winning the blond over, Kakashi hefted the girl onto his shoulder. Tazuna duplicated this with Sasuke and almost dropped the new sharingan user when Naruto lifted Zabuza and his sword with the same amount of effort. Stepping over an obscenely obese man who seemed to have been decapitated, and around several dead mercenaries, they trudged onward to Tazuna's home.

AN: doesn't it make you feel all warm and fluffy?


	8. Chapter 8

Once again, Haku was lifted off the ground by Sasuke, and stran

_**Sorry for the wait!**_

--

Once again, Haku was lifted off the ground by Sasuke and strangled with one hand, while sliding a kunai across her arm, bringing forth a trickle of blood. It was a poor method, but Sasuke had almost exhausted his chakra with earlier attempts, so he was keeping it as simple as possible. Two meters away, Naruto leaned against a tree watching the exchange, sharingan taking every detail in.

"I'll ask you again. How did you become powerful?" The heir of the sharingan clan growled. Haku, despite his best efforts, would not respond, ignoring crisscrossing lines of ripped flesh. She didn't even struggle, remaining limp in his hand, gazing endlessly into the wall of trees behind them, as if she could see paradise and was willing to abandon her body to reach it. If it weren't for her strong pulse, Sasuke would have sworn he killed her earlier, but either way, he wasn't getting results. "Pathetic." He released her, and glared, trying to remember any special techniques his family had for interrogation.

"It's useless. She hasn't spoken even once since we finished healing her. Come on, we're strong enough as we are." Naruto shifted uncomfortably, and deactivated his sharingan. "At first I thought she deserved this, but she doesn't even put up a fight."

Sasuke continued glaring at Haku, but his speech changed targets. "You have the adult sharingan and a mastery of seal-less jutsu. I barely have the sharingan. Together, we would barely noticeable to **Him**." The fact he was also getting revenge for his defeat was made clear by a kick to Haku's stomach. The girl limply rolled a few feet, before hitting a tree.

"Alright, but developing our own power is more important than figuring out hers." Sasuke, who had been preparing for a sharingan enhanced genjutsu, stopped mid hand-seal, easily detecting Naruto's message. 'I won't help you figure out her power, but if you want to become powerful, then I'll support you fully.'

"Fine, but she has to be useful to us in some way. Come up with some good ideas or I'll go back to finding things out from her." Naruto pushed chakra out of his hand, and barely focusing, transformed it and the air around it with metal chakra into a kunai. The metal chakra simplified the process, but solidifying the air into the shape he wanted was still annoyingly difficult. Thus, in battle he used simpler, smaller shapes in large numbers. The blade was immediately plucked from the air and tossed to Sasuke to add to his weapon pouch.

"I thought of that earlier and I've come up with four good ideas. The first is you marry her." Sasuke turned to Naruto and projected a killer's intent. It was the only jutsu he had managed seal-less, but Naruto shrugged it off immediately. Their sharingans seemed to resist the demonic images, whether it was active or not. "Ok then, I expected that. Next is, we hire her as a bodyguard or something."

"Right, maybe you need a little girl keeping you safe, but I'm fine." The permanent annoyance and gloom that permeated through the true Uchiha was broken and, though he didn't show it, he was almost happy he had a little bit of family remaining.

"Hey, you just find me a ninja and I'll crush him!" Sasuke almost laughed at the idiot, but Naruto could see he was restraining himself. Avengers don't laugh, after all. "Alright then, the second best was we replace Sakura with her on our team. The problem with that one is Kakashi probably won't let us." Kakashi had been drilling one thing into their heads before the Wave mission began, and it was "Value your teammates over your mission." and crap like that. His time would have been better spent training Sakura, or replacing her with a competent girl like Tenten, as both boys ignored it for the most part.

"That's a minor problem, but there are easy ways to get around it. Your final idea?" Sasuke thought about the path Naruto's ideas had been following and predicted the next. Surprisingly, it wasn't actually too bad.

"You probably just guessed it, but it isn't really a new idea. It kind of just adds to the last one. We add her to our clan. Then she, as a citizen of Konoha, will be an available ninja, and they have to let us pick her when we force Sakura out of the team. Once she passes the basic exam, that is." Sasuke nodded to him, which was his normal equivalent of saying nice job. Then he glanced down at the konoichi at his feat. Slowly, he lifted her up and gently propped her against a nearby tree.

"Would you like to have a purpose?" A spark returned to her eye and without hesitation, she smiled.

--

Red irises were the only thing visible in the darkened room, other than a slit of skin suggesting a pale, almost sickly white face. Despite the room being almost pitch black, the figure seemed to be focusing on a sole entity and after several minutes of patient, motionless waiting, the next person finally decided to speak.

"You may give your report Itachi." The second person had a calm, male voice and spoke almost lazily, but that neither seemed to annoy or even be noticed by the oldest remaining Uchiha.

"Wave has been liberated from Gato's influence, but power still belongs to our organization, though some branches have become unruly. The majority of the rouge nin population was undisturbed and the more powerful ones are being monitored by our agents. Outside of our extended group, our reputation occasionally attracts attention, but that is taken care of whenever a serious threat comes forward. No Hidden village has figured out our true purpose yet."

"What of your wanderings? What did you find then?" If Itachi was surprised, however unlikely that is, he didn't show a flicker of it.

"I was looking for signs of Orochimaru making an attempt at either my brother, or the nine tailed fox."

"Hmm, if that is all, you may go. And, if you ever suspect he is going after either, feel free to act on your hunch." He paused, and then continued. "Your new assignment is to monitor Suna with Kisami. If brother Orochimaru is doing more than we expected, take action as you see fit."

"Very well sir."

"Oh, and one last thing. Don't let you visits interfere with your work. " An amused smile became visible through the shadows.

"I won't sir." There was a small sizzling noise and a hint of yellow, before the second person disappeared. After a second of waiting, the illuminating eyes closed. Then the room fell completely silent.

--

Kakashi hopped from branch to branch, using the proper body flicker, to race his students back to Tazuna's house. He beat them by a full minute and spent the time scanning Ichi-Ichi paradise while propped against the side of the house, before two bulbs of chakra burst through the trees and landed a few feet away from him. The blobs quickly faded away to reveal Naruto with Haku on his back and Sasuke who was staring a hole through Kakashi's book. After they caught their breath, Naruto let Haku fall off of him, but surprisingly, she actually stood instead of limply collapsing.

"What exactly were the three of you doing out there?" They didn't answer, so he tried a joke. "If you need pointers, chapter thirteen is more than sufficient as long as you keep everything safe, and don't bend to hard…" Sasuke strode over to him and stared into his natural eye.

"We're changing our third teammate. We _will_ trade Sakura for Haku." With a sigh, Kakashi closed his book and slid it into one of his pockets.

"I was hoping you weren't going to ask that." Kakashi took a moment to think of a way to keep Sakura on the team, without problems later. The boys were stubborn enough alone, but with them working together it would be a chore to dissuade them.

Naruto took the pause as his chance to speak. "You knew that we were going to though. Your fast, but nothing escapes sharingan eyes."

'I must be getting rusty with the B rank missions I've been getting. I either need a good handful of S ranks, or to train with Guy for a few days. Sasuke shouldn't be able to catch me like that just yet.' "Alright, you caught me. That doesn't change my answer." Naruto growled and Sasuke looked ready to break his mask of emotion to do the same, so Kakashi quickly did damage control. "I would let you trade if you got majority, voting among yourselves for it, but think about poor Sakura." The boys still looked mutinous, so Kakashi tried one last evasion. "Besides, you would need either the Hokage's approval or the councils…" He thought about what he had said for a second. 'SHIT!'

Both boys, though more Naruto than Sasuke, relaxed, and grinned. "Easy." The Uchiha we rich by any ones standards and held a lot of the town's wealth, so bribing and pressuring the council would be a breeze. Furthermore, the Hokage would sell his soul for Naruto, so both groups were in the children's pockets. "We'll finally be rid of Sakura." Both boys stated.

"Alright, until I feel we're ready to make the change, this will be a four genin team. In a month or two though, Sakura will be gone." Though for a while, Haku had been radiating tiny amounts of chakra almost giddily, she was now looking sadly towards something that gasped in horror at the end of his statement. Naruto and Sasuke fell into their fighting stances, but it was awkwardly unnecessary.

Though it only took a few more seconds, it felt like hours to Kakashi as he realized Sakura had been to their side from the start, probably coming out of the forest after practicing and had slowly been drawing closer and closer to them. She had been walking wearily, so her footsteps hadn't made him alert and because of her low chakra stores, she didn't have enough chakra for him to sense. The fact that she came from his sharingan side, which was now covered, didn't help much either.

"Sakura." She took a few steps back, before turning around and running back into the forest, tears already streaming down her face.

Sasuke watched her disappear disinterestedly, and then returned his full attention to Kakashi. Naruto, on the other hand, struggled with letting her go, before he exploded at his brother.

"Sasuke, we can't just let her go! Come on, she may be weak, but she's our teammate right now. Besides, she won't last very long out here…a rabbit might attack her or something." Sasuke rolled his eyes, but didn't bother thinking it over as he and Naruto sprang as one, racing over the swamp's foliage to track the girl down.

When only Haku and Kakashi remained, the girl whispered something to herself, and it was almost swallowed by an uncommonly warm breeze before Kakashi's now enhanced hearing picked it up. "I'm sorry I stole your purpose."

--

Ten squads of clones, in groups of ten Naruto and one Sasuke, darted through the forest, none but the originals taking Sakura's real route. While Naruto and Sasuke were perfectly capable of tracking her, Sakura, if attacked by a wandering nin…or anything really, wouldn't stand much of a chance. Within five minutes, she was too tired to continue and sat down on a fallen tree's trunk to finish crying.

"Pathetic." Sasuke almost seem angrier at her for crying than he was for her not being as strong as she could be. "We found her, so I'm leaving." Naruto watched as Sasuke disappeared up a tree, but the sound of branches being disturbed didn't go very far off. Forgetting about his brother, Naruto returned his attention to Sakura, waiting for the right time to approach. It took a few minutes, but she finally looked calm again, so he rose from his hiding place and approached her, making it three steps, before a crippling spike of chakra pushed its way out of him.

"What…" Before he could completely articulate his confusion and pain, another wave of chakra, stronger than the last, shot through him. A large red paw print appeared over the seal on his stomach and despite his own chakra and his orange jumpsuit, visibly glowed. Curling into a ball, Naruto fought to push the chakra back down, as the clones in his seal did the same.

--

Another small wave of red fluid ripped through the halls, coating the floor in blood-like slime. Wind Naruto, the wind clone general, which Naruto absorbed weeks earlier jumped over it landing on the roof of the tunnel.

"Great! Now I can't even walk on the ground!" The several clones around him laughed at his annoyance, but stopped short when they realized that some of the others didn't know what was happening. Shadow had wandered off early on, and then Metal, Fire, and Root went searching for him. That had been months ago in the seal, but they had yet to find anything other than red glowing floors around Kyuubi's cell.

Water, who was their current leader due to Naruto being in Wave country, shook his head at Wind's comment. "Forget about that. We need to focus on getting to Kyuubi, and stopping him. This is his chakra after all." The other clones though the plan over for a few seconds, before agreeing. "Alright, Wind, you stay here in case the others come back. Everyone else, follow me." The three going to Kyuubi took off, before Wind could protest. Alone, he tried to contain his anger for what could have been hours, until it exploded out of him.

"Damn, it's always the same! Everyone else gets to use their chakra almost daily, but never me!" Wind punched a wall next to him, creating a small indent, but as he removed his hand it automatically started repairing itself. "Why am I the only one with only five jutsu?" Konoha's library and the forbidden jutsu scroll combined produced five mostly pathetic wind jutsu. Naruto only bothered to learn three. "_Great wind gale_, _wind sickle_, _lesser whirlwind_. How am I supposed to use those? Push a ninja away from me? Spin him around? Sickle is barely useful when compared with any fire jutsu! I want to make tornadoes! To fly!"

Unable to take it any longer, Wind did three hand seals and clawed towards the thin layer of chakra on the ground, shooting thin blades of wind at it. The red chakra churned at the contact spot before returning to normal and continuing through the channel. But, after a few seconds it was disturbed again. A large glistening claw rose from the chakra, grasped him and dragged him straight into the sludge below.

His yells were immediately muffled by surging spiritual energies, as he was dragged impossible far down, into the red sea, until Wind was finally flung out into a dark chamber.

Coughing and spitting the liquid chakra out, Wind didn't notice several beings surrounding him until it was too late and a furry, almost inhuman hand descended upon him and lifted him to his feet.

"Thanks. Shadow." The general of the shadow clone group grinned at him, displaying impossibly sharp teeth.

"No problem. Want to join me in training? You be able to show the others just how strong you are." The four tails swishing behind Shadow were ignored, until the longest perched itself on Shadow's shoulder.

"Sure! Hey…why do you have…" The appendage whistled through the air, and struck Wind through the chest, but before he even realized that had happened, chakra was covering his body. As the final clone started his transformation, Shadow turned around to face the being behind him.

"There, I've got the other four strongest of us. Now we just need to escape." The demon fox preened himself over three large bulbs of red crystal, five tails flowing in an intangible wind behind him.

"Patience, we must wait until the seal is broken or weak enough to overpower. Until then, know this. You've done well my son. I'm proud of you." Shadow threw him a confused look before realization dawn on him.

"You're using me!" As soon as the words left his mouth, Shadow turned tail and ran for his life. Making it halfway to the bars of the cage in record time, he stopped short when his own tails released a small pulse of chakra, resonating with Kyuubi's. Involuntarily, he turned on the spot and looked into the demon's eyes, knowing that this was the end of either his free will, or his life. The last thing he felt was a savage tug in his head, before all awareness ceased.

"Don't you have something to say to your father?" The demon growled down to the Naruto. It was an odd habit, but most tailed-demons, although asexual in their natural forms, preferred to borrow only one gender when in human or animal form. They could use either gender to produce heirs in a natural fashion, but those born from that would be part demons and lack most of their demon parent's power. It wasn't a bad existence, unless they remained trapped in the mortal world and few clans discriminated against them in the demon realm.

"Father?" As information implanted itself into his mind, overwriting most of Naruto's life, the Naruto shadow-clone rose. After a minute, he finally finished processing his new life, and prostrated himself under his superior. "Thank you for liberating me from the illusion placed over my mind, father. How may I serve you?" The king of the tailed-demons curled a tail around his new 'son', and stalked back to the center of the seal. Lying in his usual spot, directly over the seal, he let the child find a warm, comfortable place, before addressing him.

"All in due time, my heir." Naruto grinned happily at being addressed as his fathers heir. It was the single greatest form of acknowledgement among demon clans, other than be born or becoming a tailed demon. "For now, we will simply wait until your brothers awake. Then, we escape." Shadow smiled up at his 'father' proudly.

Original AN: Yo! Sorry about not updating for so long, but things have been bad for writing. First I was on punishment (long story), then my computer crapped out, and then I got an F in history (which got me back on punishment)! No worries, I'll be back to my regular skill level soon, and by then, I'll be updating regularly. Look out for the next Chapter, and the update for my HP Story!

Lord Doxkid

Special thanks to my buddy, Static44 for being my beta. You da man, bro!

Original BETA Notes: Barely ANYTHING for me to edit… He's gotten better! ()

Seems as if Naruto has a bit to worry about… Wonder how that situations going to be fixed. Oh, and Haku-chan is going to be member three! Alright! (Don't really like Sakura that much. She yells too much and hits Naruto)

Until next time.

\-§-/

**New AN:** hey, I just finished editing the chapter a bit, and changing a few things to make more sense. The Kyuubi/Shadow exchange got more explanation, and I modified a little in the rest of the chapter. Know what this means? New chapters will be up soon! Oh ya, and Static wont be beta-ing for a while, so please forgive the mistakes that will now appear. He may be a god-like writer and editor, but I'm only human…or a demon…whichever.


	9. Chapter 9

unAN: A minor reminder that this is not slash

**AN: A minor reminder that this is not slash. Nor will it ever be slash. If that is what you are looking for, move on, because my characters don't do jutsu that way. Except for Orochimaru, but he's just plain creepy, so that doesn't count.**

**Story**

Opting to avoid another ninja attack, team seven took to the trees on their trip back to Konoha. Though Sakura had been recovered by Sasuke and later consoled by Kakashi and Naruto, her partially hidden depression was immediately obvious to the two fully trained Nin of their group. Naruto and Sasuke however, wouldn't have cared even if they did know, as they raced home, forcing the others to move faster.

Naruto, who had undergone a small growth spurt, looked disturbingly like his Uchiha brother, despite the dozens of obvious differences that separated the two. They moved in similar ways, although Sasuke's movements were more efficient and Naruto's more powerful, making the odd spectacle of the one mirroring the other near comical.

As Kakashi watched them, he then noticed that the two were emitting far less chakra from their abnormally developed stores, than usual. Scanning the trees, he quickly located identical overlapping tracks, and surmised what the two had done. Jumping long past being rebellious, the two were actively plotting something, probably involving Naruto's clones, and Sasuke's unlimited access to the Uchiha wealth. Taking the idea a few steps further, it was obvious the boys were smuggling something, though thankfully, Wave had become to poor to offer anything dangerous.

From various jonin reports, all dangerous illegal artifacts were seized by the new missing Nin population, leaving only E and D ranks items in Wave's mock black market. Still, the amounts they were transporting were incredible, as there must have been at least fifty clones moving their new possessions. "Huh. Oh well, I can always stop them if they try to do something stupid." Kakashi had no idea the effects his tolerance would have.

However, neither boy had heard this as they raced towards their home to continue their training, and put their new wares to use. Between the two, they had emptied every good store they could find of weapons that the pair thought they may need to counter in the future, and poorly written and outdated copies of clan scrolls. They had immediately sent ahead several clones with the worst items they had located, such as sealing scrolls designed to store human bodies, without any decay or change its state.

The scrolls were originally by the Uchiha to preserve to bodies of their own defeated Nin, until they started using them on their enemies. Those stored in the scrolls were usually dissected, studied or used in medical training, before cremation. Somewhere in Konoha, similar scrolls held the bodies of at least three of his clansmen, who were not well known or important enough for an individual funeral. Whoever held those bodies was at least intelligent enough not to use their eyes, though what they had been used for, Sasuke could only guess.

"Try to get to the Hokage before Kakashi." Sasuke grunted, sounding vexed. As they got closer and closer to returning, he was becoming steadily more irritable. It was almost annoying, but he would probably return to his old self after a good hour of training, so Naruto ignored it. "Can you manage that, or should I send a clone in your place?" Kakashi usually turned in the mission reports, so it probably would be a challenge to get to the Hokage early enough to get him to consider changing their team, but it would be interesting to try.

"Are you joking? Do you think that you can convince the citizen council?" Sasuke leered at him. He had been manipulating the lesser council since he became the Uchiha heir, though recently, it had become more difficult. They apparently thought he was old enough to not need humoring and would probably expect him to marry into one of their families if a few years.

"That's basic stuff for a real ninja." Konoha's wall appeared abruptly over the foliage. For the remained of the short trip, the group was silent.

--

"This would break at least three decades of tradition, and be highly disruptive to already existing groups." A withered looking woman spat. She had lost a large majority of her family in Kyuubis rampage, so anything remotely Naruto related could get a rise out of her. "When your team becomes chunin and jonin, you will need a person, preferably female, with advance chakra control skills to act as medic Nin. Why did you bother to call a council meeting for such a trivial matter?"

"You family hasn't been very productive since the attack if I remember correctly. As of two years ago, you borrowed a rather large sum of money from me to maintain your undeservedly lavish lifestyle, am I correct?" Sasuke had been arguing his case to each individual council member one by one and it still seemed rather dim. Hoping that Naruto was having more luck, he pushed on, speaking over the elderly council members protest in the process. "By the end of this year, you are supposed to pay me back more than twice what you have given me so far. If you still wish to live in a respectable home, you may want to be quiet and pray for an extension." Formality and kindness had been forgotten since minutes after the meeting began.

There were three main rules to conducting business with the village council, two of which he had barely gleamed from over thirteen family scrolls. The first is that a minimum of a two thirds majority vote must be reached with either council, before their decision is brought before the Hokage. The second is that ANY matter selected by an upper clan or ninja must be discussed at least once, despite any group's view on the idea. Finally, if anyone suspected that ninja activity was influencing a councilmember's vote, their vote would immediately be voided while the ninja activity was investigated.

By being the only direct sharingan heir remaining Konoha and dangling his money over their heads, Sasuke was easily as powerful as the Hokage when compared to these pathetic council members. The second council, this one being of non ninja clans and the other of only ninja clans, was far more respectable. They actually fought during wars and more than one had a jonin acting as leader, although most were retired.

"That is a private matter! The business of my family is completely separate from the villages!" Another elderly man to her right chuckled at the fit she threw, having been taunted for doing the same just minutes ago. The meeting had been going on for half an hour and each council member had been individually assaulted, usually financially, if they didn't agree with the prodigy. He was certainly different from the kind, withdrawn lad they had favored until the genin entrance exam took place.

'What changed you Sasuke?' he wondered. After all, his niece wouldn't be happy, or safe for that matter, if she was married to a miniature Itachi. If he had to, he would sacrifice her, but she was such a nice little girl…

"So is this. With Haku replacing Sakura and we will still meet all qualifications as a proper ninja team." His patience was wearing thin with these elderly fools who wasted time trying to show affluence, as their wealth and youth quickly faded away.

"What of Hanaro? She is a genin, but without a jonin or chunin to instruct her, she will not be of much use to the village." Another ancient woman, also displaying her age though she bore her wrinkles like badges of honor, interjected. With ninja wars happening every decade or so, she definitely had the right to.

"There are several mostly inactive jonin and chunin who could be spared. She would benefit more from it than any other, as she would get more attention from whoever her teacher is." Sasuke responded.

Several seemed to consider siding with him to simply end the meeting, but the antagonistic woman spoke out once again. "This Haku...how is she preferable over a nin from within the village? If she has any ninja training, she must be a missing Nin and thus needs to be executed or turned in to her home village. If we don't, it could cause another war." A taunting smile, from both sides as Sasuke spoke back.

"She was the apprentice of a missing nin, though she came from no real village. As soon as she passes the genin examinations, she will automatically become a citizen and thus a well qualified replacement kunoichi." After a brief internal struggle, the group's attention returned to him.

"If she meets the necessary requirements, the request will be brought before the Hokage at the next council meeting. Council dismissed." A sixty-ish looking woman rose, and with a curt nod ambled out a back entrance, her younger clansmen flanking her as she went. Following their leader's example, the rest of the assembly scattered, leaving only Sasuke behind.

**--**

"Kakashi, what's your stance on the change?" Although company was a welcome change from council members with demands, the meeting was steadily going downhill. Naruto seemed acquire his father's cruel wit, as the boy was starting the fight dirty. Not only had he drawn upon, as he had said "Wanting a teammate who accepted him.", but from Kakashi's small signs, he was already infiltrating the village council somehow.

"A change might increase the group's raw offensive ability, but dozens of factors will be thrown off by the shift. Teamwork skills will need to be redeveloped, along with everything taught in the academy, and..." Naruto, who had been considerably subdued until then finally exploded.

"Why do I need to work with someone who hates me? Sakura would have set this up herself, if not for Sasuke being on our team and we have the perfect replacement! She's way stronger than Sakura, you know that Kakashi!" Sarutobi sighed, thinking over his options.

"I will leave this up to Kakashi. However, if he approves of the change, you must meet certain stipulations. By the end of two weeks, Haku must be ready to take the genin exam, have a permanent residence set up, and be taught all that she needs to know for missions." He paused, thinking about Sakura and the difficulties her needing a teacher would pose. "You must also find a chunin or jonin to train Sakura until either team seven qualifies as chunin, or she gets her own team. If the instructor requests payment, you will pay half the amount a normal jonin team leader is paid, plus the regular expenses such as training approved items. Is that acceptable?"

"Yes! Thanks old man!" Naruto bounced in place happily. He had expected more demands and a much longer waiting time. "Great! Now I just have to tell everyone and celebrate. Ramen, here I come!" Not waiting to be dismissed, Naruto focused on a clone he had sent to the Uchiha district earlier and used the _Replacement jutsu_ on it. Said clone destroyed himself just after the jutsu took affect, leaving nothing but a cloud of smoke to appear in the Hokage's office.

"Are you sure it's wise to..." Kakashi sounded uncharacteristically somber, but that was only natural. His teacher's son had stated quite clearly that he thought everyone hated him, despite the Hokage's best efforts. It had only been a ruse to help his case, but there was a disappointing amount of truth behind it.

"He deserves to at least have a friendly team with him on missions. A team that won't betray him, should he decide to tell them about his secret." Feeling decades beyond his age, the Hokage moved a stack of papers to a more accessible place on his desk. "Do you think they will be ready for the chunin exams in a month? The registration won't be due until a week beforehand..."

"They're already ready. I will return later with my full report." Kakashi bowed his head respectfully and at Sarutobi's nod, flickered away. Alone, the elderly man stared at the space Naruto had occupied moments earlier. He wasn't as blind to the implications the team presented before the change, though he often wished the idea would leave him. They were so similar and when he wasn't careful, he would often slip up and speak to Naruto like he used to with Jiraiya or read deeply into Sasuke's actions without need.

"Maybe this will stop the sannin from being recreated in that squad." His mistakes with Orochimaru had haunted him for years, though many said it wasn't his fault. It was selfish and unfair, but anything that could distance to three children from his old students was worth the effort. He, much like Kakashi, had no idea what effect his actions would have on them.

--

Week one: Day one

"Tomorrow, we will be repeating the bell exercise, but with three small changes." Sasuke dispersed his two clones, quickly followed by Naruto's ten. Haku, who preferred to fight without the use of clones allowed the several ice formations she had placed throughout the forest to melt. When the teens had finally removed their various battle aids, Kakashi hopped down from his high perch, settling against the same tree lazily. Naruto lasted a few seconds, before his impatience grew too powerful for restraint.

"Well? What are the changes?" Kakashi glanced up at them, immediately noting the bloodline trait in the boy's eye.

'What? He shouldn't...when?' Memories of Naruto copying techniques moments after their use resurfaced. 'He's had the sharingan for at least a month. Maybe more, since it's fully developed, but how?' Buying time to process the information, Kakashi let a questioning "Hmm." as if he was trying to remember the changes to the exercise. 'It shouldn't be possible. I know that his father wasn't an Uchiha and his mother was a foreigner...'

"Well? Will you tell us what the changes are or will you lounge there all day wasting our time?" Sasuke, still annoyed for unknown reasons, asked. "We have a lot of training to do, so either explain or shut up and leave."

"Fine, fine...the day after tomorrow, you three will undergo the bell test again, but this time, there will just be one bell to target." Naruto and Sasuke shared a though of how the would succeed, remembering the specifics from the last exercise, leaving Haku as the only person confused. Of course, she masked it under a blank, calm facade, but Naruto, used to Sasuke doing the same, quickly spotted it.

"Don't worry Haku, we'll explain everything later. Go on Kakashi." Kakashi took a few more seconds to think before he continued.

"The second change is that if any of you get the bell, you all succeed. That also means that I'll be defending it twice as well as last time, so don't expect this to be easy." A full round of nods spurred him onward. "Finally, if you manage to get the bell, Haku will officially replace Sakura on Team Seven. I've drawn up all of the paperwork, so I just need to submit it." Expecting something similar, none of the teens were surprised in the least."If I could have a moment alone with Sasuke…"With a smile, Naruto quickly led Haku back to the Uchiha district, where the three children had been staying, to both stuff his face with ramen and explain the bell exercise, leaving Sasuke and Kakashi behind.

"Have you found a permanent residence for Haku yet?" Sasuke was the logical person to ask, what with his access to his family's wealth undeterred. "She can't stay with you in the Uchiha house forever, you know. Even I see that as inappropriate."

Sasuke stared at him numbly. "How would my cousin, a newly inducted Uchiha member and I living together be inappropriate?" He let that sink in, before he borrowed from Naruto's trick book and switched himself with a clone, destroying it in the process. The cloud of smoke left in his wake gave the illusion of him being a shadow clone from the start.

"Wonder who taught who on that one..." Kakashi remained for a few more second, before he too exploded. The real Kakashi groaned as his copy's encounter settled in his mind.

--

**At Sasuke's main house.**

"That was a while ago, though. Sasuke and I are way stronger now." Haku nodded, already think up strategies based on what Naruto had experienced. She would need to interview Sasuke as well, but she knew enough of the Copy-nin to know what to expect. "So...How did it go?"

A sudden presence manifested itself behind Haku, before a small gust of chakra flowed past her. Sasuke had just returned. "I updated Kakashi. Have you explained everything to Haku?"

"Huh? Oh, ya...I finished that a little while ago. So..." Naruto trailed off, knowing that his cousin already knew what he was planning. "How about we finish up from earlier?" Haku immediately started molding chakra, ready to use her ice attacks at a moment's notice. She was already at a disadvantage, having two opponents, each with an arsenal of fire attacks and a strong bloodline at their disposal.

Sasuke and Naruto both activated their sharingan and fell into fighting stances, before Sasuke suddenly shot up. "We should go outside." The trio was standing in the middle of one of Sasuke's, now also Naruto's, many Uchiha houses. Large enough for a single boy to live in comfortably, it was far too cramped for three people to even think about fighting in.

"Probably. Come on Haku." Haku and Naruto were both out within seconds, leaving the true sharingan heir alone.

Sasuke stared out to his two teammates, who had started sparring without him. While Haku was at a disadvantage, what with not having the sharingan and using ice techniques, she still restrained herself while fighting them. Almost like Itachi did the one time he had time to waste with his little brother. "Like my family..."

"Are we a family?" Naruto rolled out of the way of several ice needles, before launching a _hosenka_ towards to ice ninja. "Are we really like a family?" His hearing, along with all of his other senses had been steadily improving since the Bridge fight. Even his sharingan seemed to make things a little slower and better detailed.

"Master?" Haku stopped in front of the distracted youth. "What's wrong?" Naruto smiled at something, before shaking himself out of his stupor.

"Huh? What?" Smiling to himself, Naruto gestured for Haku to continue. "Oh, that was nothing. I was just thinking..." Several ice needles flew through the air, each slitting at least two Narutos throats. Every one of them disappeared.

'My family.'

AN: Sorry, but this is pretty much an important filler chapter. I'm back, yo.

Lord Doxkid.


	10. Chapter 10

"Are you all ready?" It wasn't much of a surprise that Naruto shot him a glare, while Sasuke continued to look annoyed. "Did you all remember not to eat?" He wasn't really trying to weaken them with the trick. Kakashi had a whole team start vomiting during their bell test, forcing him to take them to the hospital, test them again, fail them again and get a new jonin vest. Elite ninja or no, not much fixes the memories of three prepubescent children vomiting on you from every direction as they tried to continue fighting.

"Let's go." Taking a half relaxed stance, Kakashi watched his three students tense.

"Alright, ready? Set." A needle flew out from the trees behind Kakashi that barely missed the bells string, instead striking the lightly painted metal. The light ringing sound set both Naruto and Sasuke off and together, they rushed him, kunai in hand and sharingan possessing their eyes.

Naruto attacked first, attempting a jump kick that brought up dozens of old memories. Just as he had done weeks earlier, Kakashi ducked under it, this time grabbing Narutos leg and flinging him into the second sharingan child. Or he tried to at least. A foot away from Sasuke, Naruto flipped, landing on all fours, bringing himself to a skidding stop. As if they had planned the battle, Sasuke jumped over him and hissed the first jutsu of the fight.

"_Grand fireball technique."_The sudden attack nearly overwhelmed Kakashi, who countered with a silent earth defense technique barely before it reached him. The sound of light footsteps and grass being crushed was his only warning to dodge, as Haku joined the battle, a needle slicing through were his throat had been. Well, what looked like her at least. The easiest proof against it was the bounding run, nearly the same as an Inuzuka.

'Fast, but not quite, Naruto.' Stopping a kick with his knee, Kakashi carefully kicked the illusion cloaked Naruto in the chin, launching him away, before turning to prepare for a next attack. Nothing. Spinning to look around for the two boys, he realized too late that the Naruto he kicked did not poof away.

"U!" As three clones fell, each launching a sharp front kick towards their teacher, midair. The one in front of Kakashi didn't even see the incoming attack or land for that matter, as a kunai went through his stomach dispersing him. The other two were neutralized by simply stepping away and in seconds, another was destroyed by a punishing kick to the skull.

"Zu!" Grabbing the last clone on the ground by the neck, Kakashi flung him up into an incoming wave of clones. Said Naruto twisted until he was facing the ground again and yelled two things Kakashi never expected. First was, "Now Sasuke!" A testament to how close they had grown, as Sasuke would never allow the class clown to order him around before. "_Grand fireball technique!_" followed the first phrase as a loud cover attack.

An impressive, but weak fireball shot down, overwhelming the other Narutos who were passing him on their way down. As the ball of flames got closer to its target, kunai and shuriken sliced through it, peppering the ground around Kakashi. Giving them a chance to test their technique, Kakashi ignored the thin wires loosely cocooning around him, instead only countering the large fire with a simple water jutsu, which bled the near arid grass dry.

"Dueling Fire dragons technique!" Several dozen flames danced down the wires, wrapping Kakashi in a chakra fed pyre. It was…unimpressive. Expecting something more interesting, Kakashi was not disappointed when he sensed a surge of chakra explode above him, before it jumped towards him. Wisely choosing not to humor the two any longer, he replaced himself with a log and puffed away.

--

Sasuke, cloaked with illusions to make him look like Naruto, landed calmly beside the flame angrily feeding itself on the dry plants. "We need to do better." Four more Naruto landed around him and rushed to catch their falling master.

"It's time for Haku to join us." It stung, but even with Kakashi obviously underestimating their skill, they were not even close to getting the bell from him. Asking Haku to help would trample their egos, but victory would be worth it.

"I'll keep trying. Get Haku and figure something out." Sasuke and Naruto rushed off in opposite directions, one towards Konoha and the other deeper into the forest. Haku was supposed to watch from the sidelines, so it would not take too long to find her. If her help would be enough, was the question on their minds.

Sasuke broke from his sprint, looking for any signs of a disturbance. Either Kakashi had retreated fully, or he was going after Naruto and Haku first.

"I know you're here! Get out here and fight me!" The sound of a page being flipped, probably just to annoy him, made Sasuke smirk. This time, Kakashi would be an easy target. The thought that he wasn't a large enough threat without Naruto helping him died, as he thought out is next move.

"You two really are trying everything, aren't you? I suppose I should be relieved that you figured out working together helps, but you can't beat me outright." Sasuke formed several seals, spun and spat a small fireball at his teacher. The fireball was sidestepped and the kunai hidden inside of it was yanked out, without Kakashi even looking up. Unenthusiastically, he casually threw the blade behind him, the knife barely sliding pass the Naruto clone sneaking up on him.

"You've been reading your clan techniques, I see." Sasuke's sharingan memorized every motion, recording the exact movements that allowed his teacher to remove the flying blade. Then, with barely a shared look, he and the clone both charged Kakashi. The clone, who reached their mutual target first, took a solid kick to the stomach as Kakashi spun to defend himself, before rolling away and coming back full force, this time launching a punch that Kakashi pushed off to a side. Sasuke took his chance and jump kicked at Kakashi's head, even as he twisted his body to reach for a bell with the one hand. It was perfect.

The perfection was ruined when Kakashi completely avoided engaging him, while jumping over the now falling Naruto's sweep kick. Flipping mid air, he landed barely a foot away from them, not even outside of their basic attack range. He didn't need to move any further.

A sound stole the Naruto's attention, making the two to dodge away from their overlapping area before they even knew what it was. With far more noise than necessary, another Kakashi dropped down from the concealing trees and stood waiting for them to attack. Then another fell. And another.

"Sasuke…Time for a new plan." An understatement only an idiot like Naruto could make, as twenty Kakashi surrounded them.

--

"Sasuke loves me. He just wants to make sure that I'm better than all the other girls. He knows, but he wants to be sure!" Sakura clutched at her only picture of her crush, tears slowly warping and destroying the precious photo. They hadn't really stopped falling since team Seven returned.

"Sakura? Get out here NOW!" '_Our parents are a distraction. This is their fault. It has to be their fault_.' "SAKURA?"

"Naruto doesn't have parents. Sasuke doesn't have parents. It made them stronger. I can't have any distractions…I need to be closer to them if I want Sasuke to act on his love for me." One could claim that the voice only she heard belonged to her, but to the girl it was obvious that inner Sakura was a completely separate entity, totally devoted to their well-being. Likewise, her own mind was free of everything, but her consuming purpose. "If I can get just a little stronger, Sasuke will see I'm good enough for him. I'll be his true love and he'll kill Naruto before we move into an Uchiha mansion. I'll be Mrs. Uchiha. He'll love me."

"You haven't eaten all day Sakura! Please come out! Kakashi said you were just getting a private tutor! You can still be a ninja with your little friends!" '_They don't understand us. We have true love on our side! Being on Sasuke's team helped us stand out. Let us get closer to him.'_

"I can't live without him." '_We can…we will kill our parents first, so we can catch up to the others. Then eliminate Haku and Naruto. Kakashi too, if he stands in our way. We just need to get ready for it.'_

Delusional as the girl was, even then she knew that all of the people she needed to take down were stronger than her. Sasuke acknowledged Naruto's strength. He respected Haku and Kakashi. Kakashi would protect Naruto until his dying breath and, if his speeches were any clue, would do everything in his power to continue his job afterwards.

'_True love concurs all. They won't stop our destiny.'_"You will be mine Sasuke. I won't let them stop me. I'll always be with you." More tears streamed down her face as inner Sakura fell silent. Her prep talk over, Sakura let a precise amount of chakra flow to her hand, flushing the tears out of its prized cargo.

"Sakura?" Her mother was just outside the door. Carefully placing the picture on her pillow, Sakura bolted to the door to appease her mom. "Are you ok?"

Sakura nodded, forcing her smile up a notch in radiance. 'I have to become stronger. Sasuke will love me.' Her only picture of team Seven fluttered at a sudden gust from the open window beside her bed, but a thin stand of pink chakra anchored it to the pillow. 'I will become stronger.'

--

"That was bad." Sasuke and Haku nodded at this statement. The team had been brutally defeated. Kakashi barely accommodated to them at all, stopping each of them as if they were opposing jonin. Only Naruto escaped visibly unscathed, but that was mostly because his skin refused to bruise. Occasionally unable to tell the difference between the original Naruto and his clones, Kakashi hit him with a real attack, to the point that if he didn't contain Kyuubi he wouldn't be alive, let alone able move. His clones could barely stand, excluding the occasional elemental clone that somehow ignored his injuries.

"He is stronger than I expected." As soon as Haku joined the fray, Kakashi's sharingan made an appearance. Her techniques while fast and deadly, were actually countered by Sasuke and Naruto's redirected assault. They hadn't prepared for that intense of a fight and with conflicting attacks, Kakashi's experience got the better of them.

Sasuke remained silent, his thoughts already understood. This time, Kakashi was fighting like a jonin and although he held back on offensive jutsu, he had still taken them down with little difficulty. They were missing something. A new loophole was waiting for them.

"What could he want us to do?" The Naruto tore through the utterance, digging through everything he could connect to it. "We need to cheat somehow." The blond haired nin took his turn next.

"We need to go past getting a bell then. We can go straight to the Hokage or impersonate Kakashi somehow." They looked to Haku for her opinion.

"Kakashi wished for you to work together last time, correct?" The barest of nods prompted her to proceed. "He is instilling the virtues of a village ninja in you. Teamwork is the first. Next would be cunning. After that, discipline."

Sasuke almost visibly batted her comment away. He already knew all that he needed about the virtues. Naruto however, fell to deep concentration. "Cunning…we should definitely try my idea. If the Hokage makes our team official, Kakashi can't do a thing about it." Haku suddenly became tense.

With a single fluid motion, she sapped water out of the air and formed a needle, but the sudden threat was upon them before she could snatch it away. With an almost taunting impression of a smile, Kakashi dropped the smudged bell before Haku, letting it land on her discarded frozen weapon. The still functioning bell let out a pleasant ringing sound out before the ice dissolved from the heat of the soon to set sun.

"You pass." He chuckled, before the impression of a smile faded under his mask. "You figured it out, so I will make sure Team Seven will now consist of Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha and Haku Uchiha. However, from now on, you may not overrule me with the Hokage or the council. If you can't get permission for something, take it as training and do something else." Naruto and Sasuke both nodded.

"Train us." Both boys demanded this, as soon as his speech was over. Haku seemed impartial to the whole matter, but with Sasuke and Naruto, he was left with little choice.

"Enthusiastic I see. It won't do you much good though. You three are only as strong as most of our chunin right now, so right now you must be dead tired. Rest for tonight. At dawn tomorrow, you start your training." Two quick oxygen-depriving punches and both of the boys, already worn down to their last legs, were on the ground unconscious. With one last encouraging nod towards Haku, he took to the trees.

In less than a minute, he arrived at his own house and ignoring the easiest way in, as most ninja did, manipulated the window open. Preparing for a short rest, a weak presence passed over his roof forcing him to become alert again. Broadening his senses he followed the presence until it was a reasonable distance away from him, before he continued his preparation. It was oddly familiar, but instead of thinking about it more, he wiped off several thin slashes the three had inflicted upon him and ate. Admitting it would ruin their training, but the three were a lot closer to jonin level together than he was comfortable with and they could only become stronger still.

A relatively small, pink figure traced his steps back to her old team, hunting down her single purpose for life. It wasn't too difficult to find them, the still burning trees called as much attention to the area as puddles of dissolving ice throughout the forest. Perching herself on a tree above them, Sasuke immediately faced her greatest enemy. As Sakura glared down at the girl gathering up her love and Naruto, Haku matched her gaze silently. Deadlocked, the two refused to shift, coldly sizing each other up.

'She looks tired.' Haku did look slightly scruffy, but compared to Sasuke she was virtually unscathed. The two boys were out cold on either side of her, a determined expression frozen on their faces. Naruto stirred slightly, breaking Haku's stare, but Sakura knew the other girl was still waiting for her to act. Thus, she retreated. A faint hint of pink remained, even as she slinked away to watch the transportation of the two Uchiha from afar, marveling at her love's ability to look powerful in his sleep.

"You can't defend Naruto forever, Haku." Haku quickly escaped her gaze, but the route was simple enough. Sasuke always slept in the home his parents planned to give to Itachi. It was the closest to Konoha's ever-present forest and the most important place in town for the dedicated nin, the Hokage's office. It was also the first of her love's conquests. She would make it her home soon enough.

--

The air was amazingly crisp and refreshing as Naruto's blue eyes cracked open. Yawning, he rolled out of bed, unwilling to let his weary, but rejuvenated body to support him any more than necessary. Almost crawling to the door, his powerful senses and instincts finally alerted him to the presence of two other beings in the room.

Haku lay against the wall under the window, eyes closed. Sasuke was in the second bed in the slightly cramped room, black eyes barely opening as he sat up. Wanting to taunt his cousin at his slow awakening, Naruto instead mumbled something barely within the restriction of speech, which didn't even register in his mind. Though it was a pathetic wake up, it was as natural as fighting to them.

"Good morning masters." Haku stood completely alert now, still by the window. With a sigh, she canceled a subtle flow of chakra that and immediately, the room started to warm up. Not willing, or able to ask questions this early in the morning, both boys proceeded to one of the small home's two bathrooms to complete their morning routines.

Haku, alert though still tired from not sleeping through the night, invested a small amount of chakra on speeding the restoration processes of her body, while silently patrolling the other rooms of the house.

It was…an ordinary morning in their family.

The three finished their first activities of the day and collected in the house's small kitchen to try to create a small breakfast when a knock sounded at the door. More from reflex than anything else, Naruto immediately rushed to the door and opened it widely to the Uchiha household's first visitor of the day, Kakashi.

"Time to train. You all have ten minutes to eat and get dressed, then meet me at the Uchiha training grounds." Sasuke a resentful growl at the assumption that their property could be used, but it quickly faded into the sound of bacon sizzling and toasts being buttered.

They rushed through the meal, most of the food barely making it off whatever it was prepared on, before they finished, plates unmarred. Getting dressed, each with their backs to the others was even faster and with five minutes to spare, the three were out and on their way. The three took the fastest path along roofs and landed as one behind Kakashi, painfully ready for action with time to spare.

"You're early." Though he didn't have his little orange book this time, he still seemed to be trying to avoid direct eye contact with them. "You need to perfect being exactly on time. Too early and you can expose your team. Too late and your team will die without you. Your team should never be inconvenienced by your timing." That seemed to be all he wanted to say, as for several minutes he didn't say anything, or even make a move to look at them.

"You called us here to waste our time?" Sasuke turned and started walking away, heading towards the teams preferred training ground. "I have too much training to do for this."

Kakashi let him get five steps, before springing into action, nine kunai piercing the air towards his students. Haku hit each of them with a single needle, redirecting them into the ground prematurely. In the two-second exchange, neither Naruto nor Sasuke batted an eye, Naruto watching the proceedings with slight interest and Sasuke frozen five feet away.

"I'm supposed to train you three, but you're actively fighting against it. Haku can't fight your battles for you." This got the two boys attention. Naruto zeroed him on Kakashi, sharingan alight as Sasuke turned, his eyes doing the same. "Teamwork isn't depending on one person to fight for you." That was all he needed to say.

"I'll take this fight." Naruto formed a thin wall of clones, obscuring Sasuke and Haku. "I'll prove I can stand on my own." It was easily obvious that he would lose, but how badly would swell or shatter their collective ego.

With no further warning, half of the clones surged forward, kunai drawn and pace slightly off with each other. The first was caught in the stomach with a kick before he could try to attack, but the next learned from his predecessor's mistake. Taking aim, he threw his blade carefully in Kakashi's direction, before he started doing hand seals. A foot to his side, Kakashi caught the blade and returned it, nailing the clone in the forehead with its handle. The shock of the return, more than the pain of the blunt impact, made him freeze up as Kakashi seized the falling blade and held its handle against the first Naruto's throat.

"You switched with the first clone as soon as it attacked." Naruto let the other clones explode into dust. The group watched as the blade spun on their teacher's hand, slicing along Naruto's throat, before blood gushed from the fatal wound. With one last betrayed look in his eyes, the clone violently exploded, dissipating into wandering chakra. "You aren't the real Naruto though."

Large roots ripped themselves violently from the ground, augmented to unreal sizes with chakra, then lashed out at him. Within seconds, they trapped his feet and in just a few more, they had coiled around his body, squeezing him to a violent death. The limp corpse remained in the root's clutches, until a growth of white hair appeared on the ground, which seemed to signal the illusion to fall, leaving a splintered log in its place. A startled shout and the two opponents were ejected from the ground, leaving victory visible to all who cared to see it. Kakashi had encased Naruto in a humiliatingly immobilizing bear hug with one arm and once again held the wrong end of a knife in the other. It was over.

"Will I have to beat one of you each time I want to teach you something?" Naruto stared at the ground, his sharingan dying embers in his blue eyes. "Now, will you let me do my job, or do I have to do the same with you Sasuke?" Sasuke growled, looking equally angry with himself as he was with one of the two standing in front of him.

"Then teach us something! I'll fight you until I die of exhaustion, if it means you'll actually teach us." Kakashi automatically looked to Sasuke for the first part, but upon hearing the second sentence, turned to Naruto. Only their favorite blond could make such a promise.

"You really want to get stronger?" There was no opposition here. "Alright. I'll teach you something interesting, after you do a small workout every day. Then give me ten laps up and down a large tree, with ten pushups when you reach the middle going up and twenty sit ups when you're coming down." Three blurs answered whether they were committed to learning.

"I just hope I'm good enough to teach them." Doubt never reached the prodigy's eyes as he tracked down his students to watch them exercise. Keeping a close eye on two of them in particular, Kakashi let out a breath he was holding in when he realized there was no anger or hatred in their eyes. "I hope I know enough to keep them loyal." The three dropped as one, each landing uniquely, before turning to him, thirsty for the knowledge that flowed through his veins and spilled as his blood.

They would be sure that, of that blood, they had their fill.

**Day Two.**

Barely able to feel his own body, Naruto rolled out of bed and after a minute of enjoying the slightly dirty floor, stood. Not remembering when he laid down, he trudged out of the otherwise empty bedroom and headed straight to the kitchen to full his roaring stomach. It was a good plan, until he realized the house was deafeningly silent. A simple note, tacked to the refrigerator with a kunai, answered all of his questions.

"Gone training. Wake up sooner. Idiot." Too tired to be annoyed at his closest relative's abusive writing, he did his first jutsu for the day.

'_Shadow clone technique_.' A clone appeared before him, but it was already obvious it was a defect. Its eyes had a mutant sharingan, the tomoe split into sides by a long slit. While the whisker birthmarks didn't cause any concern, despite being at least twice as large a normal, its hair was longer and seemed to be tinted red. With an annoyed grunt, he dispelled it mentally, but as he formed the signs again, he realized it hadn't disappeared. Or moved.

"I really should figure out what's up with these duds." Forming a kunai, with much more effort than he normally needed, he stabbed the flawed copy through the stomach. The force of the attack knocked it down, but it still refused to disappear. Blood even rose from the wound, dyeing its shirt around the brutal stab. Therefore, he formed another, this time slitting its throat, to dispel it. Finally, it burst in a puff of smoke, taking its blood and his weapon with it. With a sigh, Naruto started back up the stairs, to retrieve his gear.

"Ok, no messenger then. I guess I'll go myself." He returned to the shared room, tossed on his single favorite outfit and was out the window, tracking down his family. They were, of course, at the same training grounds as before, the three practicing earth jutsu.

"You're late. Sasuke has already died twice today." Kakashi repeated the jutsu's hand-seals for Naruto and, thinking nothing of this, Naruto tried to imitate it seal-less. "The stone wall technique. Haku has mastered it already. Channel it through your legs when you just need a shield and through your arms when you need a strong one., and have a bit of extra time." Drawing chakra and forcing it to navigate the same general paths as it did in Kakashi, Naruto hit a spiritual brick wall. His chakra refused to flow further once it hit his legs.

"Odd…take a walk around the forest and see if you can get chakra through them WITHOUT blowing them off. Only push a little and if it starts hurting, stop." Naruto grumbled at the dismissal, before jumping into a tree and starting his journey around the forest. After only a minute of travel, a heavy smell of dogs struck his nose, stopping him in his tracts. Under the heavy smell, there was a slight hint of flowers.

'Might as well check it out.' Barely changing directions, he followed the smells to their sources, until he burst from the tree line, onto a training field. Before him, two Kibas circled Hinata and Shino, in what must have been one of their more intense training exercises. Their practice lasted only a few clashes, until the dog-like boys sniffed the air. Their transformation failing simultaneously, the two disappeared in a puff of smoke and in their place, stood Kiba and a small dog.

"Yo, Naruto! Want to join us?" A dozen small fireballs hurling toward the group was all the answer they needed.

--

"I'm sorry. I…" A claw cleaved the Water general's arm off, not that he was really prepared to use it. There wasn't much fight left in him after a week of fighting the mutated clone generals. "I guess I'll never be Hokage. Goodbye Shadow" The shadow general split Water's skull open, finishing the Water master completely. As the aquatic corpse fell, it slowly broke down into a clear, thick gel, which bubbled and fizzed on the deep red floor. In a rapid, strange reaction, the bluish fizz built itself up, into an almost human figure; a stature in tribute of the fallen general.

Shadow, in all his furry glory, waded up to the statue, offering a prayer for what had been a comrade in another life. With a soft pat on the statues back, he twisted the residual chakras from their battle into a small, egg-like shape. Said egg, he clenched in his paw/fist, binding it to his will, before taking hold of the dead general with the other.

"Come on. We have work to do." Chakra oozed off Water, forcefully wrapping itself around the egg, until it doubled the small item's size. Then, in an unnatural twist of evolution, it grew, stretching and twisting, until it took the form of a small fox kit. Said fox stared up at its creator, dazed, confused and hungry for attention. "So this is what it's like to be a father…" The kit licked his hand, sniggling into the larger beast's fur.

"So, you finally took him down?" Fire hadn't changed as much as Shadow had, thin red fuzz covering all of his visible body and odd muscles bulging as fox, demon and human all conflicted within him, but he could still easily pass as a human. His tail, bushy with orange, blond and red fur swayed, imitating a fiery snake, as he looked down at his leader the ceiling.

"He was a strong opponent. Remind me that we grow more powerful when we're around our own elements." Placing the kit on their lord's chakra, so it could become accustom to their master's chaotic chakra, Shadow bid his final farewell to the water general's monument. "We should get moving. The new Water will take a few weeks to master his abilities, so he can stay here." The baby looked up, distracted form half swimming, half walking of the rich red fluid. "Father wants us back…he said we should return to him after killing these humans, so we can start his ritual." Shadow bound to the ceiling, landing crouched on the stone.

"Let's go then, big brother." Taking advantage of their modified bodies, the two dropped on all fours and took off towards the center of Naruto's chakra network. "On the way, could we make a quick stop? Please?" Shadow looked over his shoulder, before nodding.

"Sure. Your kit might finally be a bit more mature." A turn at the next intersecting hallway sent them on their way to the grave and nest of Earth. The red sea rose a few more inches, as the two made their way deeper into the sewer that was a young 'Uchiha'.

AN: ya…crappy ending, but I wanted to get this out as fast as possible. I think it's alright…good enough for now, but not much progress. Next chapter will bring…something interesting. I don't know if I said there would be romance, but I might toss in a little, to make up for going so long without updating. If there is romance, it won't be mushy…since romance is almost last on team seven's priority list, there will probably be at least a few missed dates, due to someone wanting to train.

And…since one of the boys in the team will get a…girlfriend? Love interest? Non-training partner? Some combination of those… Since one of the boys will have a girl around them, that isn't devoting her time solely on training and getting stronger, the other might get one as well…don't worry though. I will never let them wimp out… think of it as a reward for being patient while I was lazy…

Oh, ya...Sakura will be a semi insane, creepy stalker. if you diagnose her mental disorder, which was made obvious early in the anime, it's go much smoother. I figured an insane student is perfect for an insane teacher... try to guess which jonin will get her, and what mental disorder she has.

Lord Doxkid


End file.
